I Read to Demigods and Gods
by squirpsdolphin
Summary: 'I look up and take in what I see in front of me, which are the Gods. I glance behind me and see the people that Hecate sent back in time to read Percy's adventures. I gaze at the Gods in awe and disbelief.' My oc/si Shelby is in the Percy Jackson world along with eleven time travelers sent back into the past reading to the Gods.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: Helllooo~! ****I am excited to announce that I am obsessed with the Percy Jackson series again. I started rereading the series and I am almost done with the first series then I am going to The Heroes of Olympus series afterwards… I also need to reread the Kane Chronicles.**

**Spencer: Shouldn't you be concentrating on Fiction Becomes Reality, Crest of Innocence, and Backlash of a Portal? And not be writing anymore stories like this one and that Naruto one you are currently writing?**

**Squirpsdolphin/Shelby: I'm getting to it, don't worry! Now onto the story!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own any of the demigods, Gods, Rachel, and Tyson. I only own my oc.**

**Chapter 1: Awakenings and Grand Arrivals**

_Little bunny Foo Foo _

_Went hopping through the forest _

_Scooping up the field mice_

_And bopping them on the head_

_Down came the Good Fairy, and she said_

_"Little bunny Foo Foo_

_I don't want to see you_

_Scooping up the field mice_

_And bopping them on the head."_

_I'll give you 3 chances,_

_And if you don't behave, I will turn you into a _**CRASH~!**

I bolted up into a sitting position from laying in my bed just sleeping about bunny Foo Foo hopping in the forest. I rub my eyes, getting the sleep buggers out of them as I look around the room trying to pick up what woke me up.

I see a cloaked figure coming towards me from my knocked over desk chair and a pile of school papers I have to go through when I get the chance. I study the cloaked figure, trying to figure out who it could be.

"Shelby… I need you to go run an errand for me." The figure said.

I yawned and sat up more as I recognized the cloaked figure to be Hecate, her hood down unlike the other times she visited me with her hood up.

Hecate looked about twenty, like in House of Hades, and dressed in a knee-length maiden's skirt and hunting boots, much like Artemis. Her hair was dark auburn, and rippled down her back in waves, and she wore a simple silver circlet around her head.

Her features were sharp and angular: High cheekbones; straight, pointed nose; sharply defined chin; lips so thin they were almost nonexistent. Hecate's eyes were the color of butter, with long slitted cat-like eyes.

"What is the errand?" I asked her, glancing at my alarm clock making out the time being _4:30am_ in the morning.

I groaned and tilted back until I landed back on my back, trying to go back to sleep. "Its 4:30 in the morning, can't it wait till oh I don't know… Maybe in a couple of hours?" I muttered.

"No it cannot wait. I need you to go talk to the Gods on my behalf and explain to them what I want them to read. I also sent some people back in time to read along with the Gods. You will need to bring all the Percy Jackson books you have and even the next series also. They will be reading all of them for the future and mostly because I want to see the Gods reactions to the books." Hecate said, pulling me up from the bed shoving my backpack in my hands and pushing me to my desk where all my Percy Jackson books are and the Heroes of Olympus books are.

_'Great… I can't wait.'_ I muttered as I shove all the books into my backpack that's a mansion on the inside but ordinary backpack on the outside.

"How many people did you send back in time? And when in time did you send them?" I asked, walking towards Hecate so that she can send me to a different dimension.

"You will find out when you get there, and a year before Luke Castellan steals the lightning bolt. But I am not quite sure, so you will need to ask when you get there. Don't forget to have Hades be there too. You ready?" Hecate said, creating a white fog in the middle of my bedroom.

I place my backpack on my back as I nod. Hecate raises her hand at me and the white fog surrounds me as it transports me to a different dimension. The fog kept whipping in my face as I traveled with immense speed through the fog.

All of a sudden the fog evaporates and I crash into the ground. I grumble as I stand up brushing myself off from the harsh landing, not bothered at all by the pain since I was used to the painful landings. I notice that I am wearing my cloak and that the hood is up and covering my face.

I look up and take in what I see in front of me, which are the Gods. I glance behind me and see the people that Hecate sent back in time to read Percy's adventures. I gaze at the Gods in awe and disbelief.

Zeus gives off a vibe that says he is imposing. He has long black shoulder-length hair with a gray-and-black neatly trimmed beard. He has brilliant electrically-blue eyes with a serious and proud, but very handsome face. Zeus's is wearing a dark blue pinstriped suit.

Poseidon has black hair, a neatly trimmed beard, sea-green eyes, and a nice tan, as well as "smile crinkles" around his eyes and cheeks. He is wearing Birkenstocks (leather sandals), khaki Bermuda shorts, a shirt with coconuts and parrots on it, and a cap decorated with fishing lures which says "Neptune's Lucky Fishing Hat".

Hera has very long, silver hair woven into braids with golden ribbons, a "sunny smile", and wears a lavish and dazzling white dress that ripples and "shimmers with colors" like oil on water when she moves. Hera also wears a glowing golden crown, and her arms are bedecked with golden jewelry. She also has brilliant brown eyes.

Dionysus has a chubby face, a red nose and curly hair so black, it looks purple. He normally has watery, blue, bloodshot eyes from drinking. He is wearing tiger-striped Hawaiian shirts and purple running shoes.

Athena is has long black hair and intense gray eyes She is wearing an elegant flowing gray robes, Greek battle armor, and a golden helmet on her head, which is decorated with pictures of gryphons, and sphinxes.

Hermes has a muscular build, curly black hair, blue eyes, elfish features, and a sly grin. He has been known to wear nylon running shorts and New York City Marathon T-shirt while jogging.

Artemis can appear as whatever she likes, but chooses to be the average age of her Hunters, which is around twelve. She has auburn hair and eyes as silvery yellow as the moon, and is incredibly beautiful. She is wearing a short tunic with her hair into a ponytail.

Apollo appears as a handsome young man in his late teens, sandy hair, a bright cocky smile, and outdoorsy good looks. He is wearing a white, sleeveless T-shirt, blue jeans, and loafers.

Demeter has long, wavy hair as blonde as ripe wheat, as well as large brown eyes. Her hair is braided with poppies and ears of wheat, while wearing a bright green dress and a black cape.

Ares wears black jeans, combat boots, a leather duster, and muscle shirt with a bulletproof vest and an iron padlock necklace. He wears red tinted wraparound sunglasses to cover his flame-filled eye sockets.

Hephaestus is a huge man with his shoulders at different heights and a huge, bulging, misshapen head and his leg in a creaking steel brace, with a wild brown beard that sparks fire from time to time. He wears a jumpsuit that is clean and elegant.

Aphrodite had shoulder length hair, a graceful neck, and a great figure. She is wearing jeans and a snowy white top, while looking at clothes on the 50% off rack.

Hestia has long mousy-brown hair and "warm and cozy" eyes of red fire. She wears a simple brown dress or robes with a scarf wrapped around her head.

Zeus and Hera's thrones were both at the far end of the council hall. Their thrones were also the only two that faced the doors. All the male Olympian's thrones were all on the left facing the right and the female Olympian's thrones were all on the right facing the left.

The order for the male's side is Zeus, Poseidon, Ares, Apollo, Hephaestus, and Hermes. The order for the female's side is Hera, Demeter, Athena, Aphrodite, and Dionysus who was given Hestia's spot for her throne. Hestia has her throne by the hearth.

Zeus' throne was made out of yellow Egyptian marble that had small pieces of gold built into it for decoration. The throne was so large that it had seven steps leading up to it, each one colored with a color of the rainbow. There was a large blue covering over the throne, symbolizing the sky. On the right arm of the throne was a ruby-eyed eagle that had jagged strips of tin in its beak which symbolized that Zeus could kill any enemies by throwing lightning at them. Zeus has a purple ram's fleece over the chair.

Hera's throne was made out of ivory. There were only three steps leading up to her throne but they were all made out of rainbow crystal. On the back there were several golden cuckoos and willow leaves. Above the throne hung a moon. She sat on a cowskin.

Poseidon had the second-largest throne, only succeeded by Zeus' throne. Poseidon's throne was the closest to Zeus' and was made of gray-green white-streaked marble. It was decorated with coral, gold, and pearls because Poseidon was the god of the seas. The arms took the shapes of sea beasts and Poseidon sat on silk, sleek seal skin.

Directly across from Poseidon's throne and next to Hera's throne was Demeter's throne. Her throne was made of bright green malachite and had golden barley and miniature golden pigs (for luck) all for decoration. Her symbol was the poppy and it glowed blood red against the barley.

Hephaestus' throne was made out of every kind of precious metal and stone there was to be found. The seat was able to swivel and the arms were adjustable. The whole throne moved along with Hephaestus' will.

Athena's throne was made of silver. Along the back and the sides were golden baskets, because Athena is also the goddess of crafts. There was also a violet crown made out of blue lapis lazuli set atop the throne. The arms ended in the heads of a smiling Gorgon. There was an owl on her throne.

Aphrodite's throne was also made of silver but it had beryls and aquamarines built into it. Also, the back of the throne was made into the shape of a scallop shell. The seat was made of swans down and at her feet was a golden mat that had bees, sparrows, and apples woven onto it.

Ares' throne was made of brass which was very strong but ugly. There were brass knobs that were made into the shape of human skulls. Also, the cushion was made out of human skin. _'Icky'_

Apollo's throne was made of gold and was extremely polished. There were magical inscriptions all over the throne. The back was in the shape of a lyre, Apollo's symbol and he had a python skin to sit upon. Hung above the throne, a sun-disk with twenty-one rays shaped like arrows because Apollo is sometimes said as the god of the Sun and light.

Artemis' throne was made of silver and she had a wolf skin to sit upon. The back was shaped like a moon with a date palm on each side. _'Sweet'_

Hermes' throne was made out of stone. The arms had been cut to resemble ram heads and there was a goatskin for the seat. On the back, there was a carving of a symbol for the fire-drill.

Hestia's throne was very plain and made out of wood. There was also a cushion on the throne which was made out of undyed wool. Hestia eventually gave up her throne for a simple tripod next to the hearth.

Dionysus' throne was made out of gold-plated fir wood. It was decorated with grape bunches carved into amethyst, snakes carved in serpentine, and various horned animals carved in onyx, sard, jade, and carnelian.

"WHO ARE YOU?! WHAT IS ALL THESE CHILDREN DOING HERE?!" Zeus roared.

_'This is amusing… But first thing first. I need to make sure that this isn't one of those pain emitting dreams I get sometimes, when I feel the pain from impacts from the portals I dream about.'_ I thought as I took off my backpack from my back and placed it on the ground.

I put up my hand and did the sign language for wait a moment as I bend down as I rummaged through my backpack looking for my knife. _'Come on you little stupid thing where are you… Ah ha! Found you!'_

I take my knife out and kneel on one knee. I, with no hesitation whatsoever plunged the blade into one of the muscles in my thigh.

A searing pain much worse than I would feel if I am sleeping, emits from the stab wound. It felt like I was pressing my leg up against something that is burning, like a cold flame.

"Well, I'm not dreaming." I muttered as I pulled out the knife, gritting my teeth as I do.

I quickly take hydrogen peroxide and a roll of bandages out to clean my wound so it doesn't get infected. I just dumped the peroxide right onto the injury, hissing as it stings when it makes contact. I wrap the bandage over the wound a couple times then tied it tightly making sure it won't fall off. I put everything back in my bag and push myself up.

I stand back up and dusted the imaginary dust off of me. I looked at the Gods as I kept my weight more on my left leg since I just stabbed my right one and it is still quite tender to the touch.

"Right… So what year is this?" I asked the Gods, not just for my sake but for who all is behind me.

"It is the Winter Solstice, December 21, 2004. Why did you stab yourself, not that it wasn't amusing?" Zeus said, staring at me intently trying to figure me out.

_'What Hecate said was correct. I just wanted to make sure just in case.' _I went over what he said in my head.

"I was woken up at 4:30 in the morning, told to come here talk to the Gods on someone's behalf and explain to them what that someone wants them to read. That same someone sent these people back in time to read along with you. When I got here I wasn't sure if this was a dream or not. So I stabbed myself, yes it hurts but I have had an injury much worse than this so I'm not really bothered by it that much." I said as my eye twitched a bit on the part where I woke up at 4:30 in the morning.

"Why would you think this is a dream?" Zeus asked, clearly not letting any of the other Gods ask.

"I am not allowed to say at this moment. Oh and I was told that Hades has to be here also, and it wouldn't hurt if he has somewhere to sit either since this whole thing from what I gathered will take a while." I said, stifling a yawn.

"WHO ARE YOU TO TELL ME WHAT TO DO?! AND WHO SENT YOU?!" Zeus roared, flashing his lightning dangerously close to me.

"Peace Zeus. She did not mean any harm, but better get used to it she is always like this. She is here because I asked her to come on my behalf while I did a couple things before I came here." Hecate said as she materialized in the room, standing a couple feet away from me.

Zeus quickly calmed down, not wanting to get on Hecate's bad side he sent for Hades. The other Gods however where curious as to why Hecate showed herself in front of them with a mysterious figure.

Hades flashes in a black shadow type fog like he shadow traveled but more like instant transmission. Hades is a tall, imposing and very muscular god with albino white skin, intense black eyes that were either the eyes of a genius or a madman, and having a mesmerizing, evil charisma, and shoulder-length black hair. He is wearing black flowing robes with evil souls threaded into the cloth.

His black onyx throne made of skulls appears the same way he came, setting himself by his brothers, Zeus and Poseidon.

"You stabbed your leg?" Hecate asked with her brow raised, taking in the slightly red bandage wrapped around my leg.

"Yes, yes I did. You woke me up at 4:30 in the morning to send me here to talk on your behalf, explain to them what you want them to read, since they will be reading about the future and mostly because you want to see the Gods reactions to the books." I said, grumpily as I crossed my arms over my chest.

"I'm not surprised." Hecate sighed, ignoring my mood being used to it and all.

"You aren't surprised?" Demeter said, staring at Hecate like she is crazy.

"Well no. She does stab herself quite often, intentionally or not." Hecate said.

"Okay I only stab myself when I make sure I'm not dreaming! It's not my fault that I end up getting stabbed instead of my friends.

"**Tá a fhios agam ach tú a fháil fós i go leor trioblóide ar do chuid féin!***" Hecate said.

"I know…" I muttered, being the only one that knew what she said in Irish.

"Well anyways… These kids here are from the future that I sent back." Hecate said, gesturing to the kids behind her and me.

I recognize all of them immediately when I turned around. I grinned at the sight of them, but frowned when I thought about which book they just came from.

The eleven kids that were sent back and just so happen to be my favorite characters are Percy, Rachel, Annabeth, Hazel, Piper, Jason, Thalia, Nico, Frank, Leo, Tyson are all the ones that were sent back.

Percy looks quite like his dad, Poseidon with the jet black hair and bright green eyes. Percy is very fit, muscular, and lean from all the training he went through.

Hazel is African American with shoulder-length curly cinnamon brown hair and gold eyes. She is marked with a glyph, the letters SPQR. She is toned and fit.

Nico has dark hair that is long and frames his face. The area around his n eyes is very dark, while his complexion is even paler than what I remembered. His complexion is a sickly greenish-white, like the color of tree sap.

Jason Grace is good-looking, he has the features of a Roman statue, with electric blue eyes, tidy, military cropped blond hair which grew out during his time at Camp Half-blood, and a small scar on the corner of his lip from trying to eat something when he was younger. He is very tall being one inch taller than Percy, with an athletic build, having muscular and tanned arms. He has a tattoo that is a picture of an eagle with SPQR.

Rachel wears over-large shirts, doodles on her jeans, and seems to poke holes in them when she is bored. She is a tall, slim girl with frizzy red hair, freckled face, and green eyes.

Annabeth has curly golden blonde hair and is "like a princess," as Percy describes it. She is tall, fit, and athletic. Her eyes is an intense shade of gray. Annabeth looks like a typical California girl only with a natural tan. She is wearing a red camp-half blood shirt and blue shorts.

Frank is Asian-Canadian and has a babyish face with brown eyes and black short hair which, seems out of place with his stout body and military haircut.

Leo looks like a "a Latino Santa's elf," with curly black hair, dark brown eyes, pointy ears, a cheerful, babyish face, normally with a mischievous smile on his face, and being of normal height with a slim build. He is 5'6.

Piper has dark tanned skin, chocolate brown hair that is cut choppy and uneven with thin strands braided on either side of her hair and eyes that change color like a kaleidoscope going from brown to blue to green. She wears a simple, tomboyish style.

Thalia has shoulder-length or as sometimes described short, spiky black hair, electric blue eyes and freckles across her nose. She wears punk styled clothes.

Tyson is two meters tall (though he can grow up to 30 feet tall at will), and very broad shouldered, and has very messy brown hair. He has one large brown eye.

I stare at them for a good couple minutes until I whip out a notepad, quickly writing down one word 'Tartarus?' then showing it to them.

The group looks at each other for a second, before Percy and Annabeth's eyes widen slightly and stare at me for a second or two before slowly nodding their heads, confirming my suspicions.

I wrote 'that sucks, sorry you had to go through that.' On the notepad giving it to the pair and took a couple steps back as Hecate begin explaining what she wanted the eleven of them to do.

"Alright. I want all of you except for Percy to introduce themselves, state who their godly parent is, and then I will have the cloaked figure introduce herself. And explain who she is." Hecate said.

I rolled my eyes. _'Well this will be fun.'_

All of them step forward to introduce themselves.

"Perseus 'Percy' Jackson." Percy said.

Poseidon's eyes widened. He glanced quickly at his siblings seeing if they recognized him or not. But luckily they didn't.

"Hazel Levesque, Daughter of Pluto. One of the Seven." Hazel said.

"B-but you died!" Hades sputtered, his eyes widening.

"She was brought back, Lord Hades. All will be explained in one of the books you will read." I said, bringing attention to myself like always.

"How do you know?" Ares asked, narrowing his eyes at me.

I rolled my eyes under my hood. "How? ... Hecate will tell you when everyone who was sent back in time is introduced." I said, ignoring Ares glaring when I didn't answer his question.

He silently stewed as they continued introducing themselves.

"Nico Di Angelo, son of Hades, my dad didn't break the oath I was put in the Lotus Hotel during world war two, Ghost King." Nico said, staring right at me.

"How did you get out?" Hades asked, raising his brow at Nico as Nico continued to stare at me.

"It's in one of the books." Nico said shrugging.

"Oi, Ghost boy! Why do you keep staring at me?" I asked, getting annoyed by Nico's constant staring.

"I feel like I have meet you before." Nico said, smirking a bit.

_ 'That's because we have dumbo.'_ I thought not saying anything but shrugged at him.

"Jason Grace, son of Jupiter and former Praetor of the Twelfth Legion. One of the Seven" Jason said, surprising the Gods that a Roman is in the room.

"ZEUS AGAIN?!" Hera yelled at him.

"Why are you with them?" Zeus asked.

"The only thing I am going to say is the future is messed up and it is in the books." Jason said, shrugging.

I grinned at his answer which ticked the War God of a bit.

"Rachel Dare. Oracle of Delphi." Rachel said.

"No mummy!" Apollo cheered, but only to get punched in the head by Artemis.

I snickered quietly. _'Go Artemis!'_

Annabeth Chase, Daughter of Athena and architect of Olympus. One of the Seven." Annabeth said, smiling at me already figuring it out who I am.

Athena smiles down at Annabeth, enjoying that one of her kids was sent back in the past.

"Frank Zhang, son of Mars, legacy of Poseidon. One of the Seven." Frank said, as I mentally cheered for him but booed on the Ares part.

"YES!" Ares shouted.

"'Leo Valdez, Son of Hephaestus, Fire-user. One of the Seven." Leo said, as he lite his hand on fire to demonstrate.

_'Ooo… Fire… No! Bad Shelby!' _I shook out of my thoughts from staring intently at the flame.

Hephaestus smiled down at Leo, while Ares snorted but only to stop when Poseidon pummeled him with a wave of water.

"Piper McLean, Daughter of Aphrodite and Charm-speaker. One of the Seven." Piper said, grinning up at her mom.

Aphrodite smiled back and both of them glanced in my direction, probably plotting when I reveal myself that they are going to give me a makeover.

_'I'm doomed.'_

"Thalia Grace, Daughter of Zeus and Lieutenant of Artemis." Thalia said.

Zeus smiled but then frowned when he heard that she is a lieutenant for Artemis. Artemis smiled down at Thaila.

"How are you not a tree anymore?" Zeus asked.

"It's in the books." Thalia said, smirking at me.

_'She probably knows who I am… Great… She is going to shock me later I just know it.'_

"Tyson, Son of Poseidon and General of Cyclopes in Poseidon's Army." Tyson said.

_'Yay Tyson is here!'_ I thought grinning.

They all step back after they introduce themselves waiting for Hecate to explain who I am to everyone. I rolled my eyes as I see a couple of them fidgeting.

"So Hecate, who is she?" Zeus asked, gesturing at me.

"The girl that I blessed, that my idiotic daughter decided to get back at for receiving something she was never going to get in the first place. So she did something about it. It made her life even more interesting because of it." Hecate said, giving me one of her rare smiles.

"That's her?" Zeus said in disbelief.

"Well introduce yourself!" Hera said, staring at me.

"Hi. Well my mom and dad are human. Thanks to Fate, Hecate's daughter I can do things that humans can't. And Hecate is a second mom to me, which makes her my honorary godly parent. There is a lot of other things that I won't go into… Oh and my name is Shelby." I said, pulling my hood down.

_'Three. Two. One.' _I waited for the reactions of the people that know me that didn't catch who I am.

"SHELBY?!" Percy, Nico, Rachel, and Tyson yelled in joy while the others except Annabeth and Thalia stared at the four of them in confusion.

"Hello!" I said, turning around grinning at them as I give them a little wave only to frown and stop in mid wave when I saw Nico and Percy glaring at me.

_'I'm doomed...'_ I smile uneasily at the two of them as they begin walking towards me.

I would have bolted behind Hecate for safety if I wasn't knocked on the ground by a sudden weight that bulldozed into me. I groaned in pain as I notice that Tyson was the one who knocked me down onto the ground.

Tyson didn't let me catch my breath when he bolted up to stand taking me with him as he started spinning me around like a rag doll. I felt I was going to vomit if I didn't do something to stop the spinning.

"Tyson… Please stop spinning me or I am going to end up puking all over you." I said, as my face began to turn green as I felt the puke begin to rise up to my throat.

He places me back on my feet. I bend down to settle my stomach as everyone surrounds me. I breathe in deeply then let it out as I stand back up.

"So you're Shelby? How come I never heard of you?" Jason asked, coming to investigate me.

"I'm not someone to be discussed, not when I don't exist here." I grinned like the Cheshire Cat.

The five people that don't know me looked at me like I was a crazy while the other six rolled their eyes at my answer. Thalia shakes her head and punches my arm while shooting sparks as she hits me.

'Oww, Thalia! Why did you hit me?! I wasn't doing anything." I whined, rubbing my arm to soothe the pain and numbness.

"One, hitting on my little brother. And two, just tell them what they don't know about you so that we can get to reading whatever we need to read." Thalia said, giving me a look that says to do what she says or I will get hit again.

"I wasn't hitting on Jason for one, he is with Piper. I have no interests in guys right now because of school sadly." I said, pouting with my arms over my chest.

"Okay, you guys can ask her what you want to know now." Thalia said to the six, rolling her eyes.

"How do you know Percy, Annabeth, my sister, Rachel, Tyson, and Nico?" Jason asked.

"I've meet them before, things happened, and in return I helped them with some things." I said, being careful not to say anything about the future in front of the Gods.

"That doesn't answer his question." Zeus pointed out, clearly showing that the Gods are also listening to our conversation.

I rolled my eyes which he clearly didn't see since my back is to him. I turned around and shrugged my shoulders.

"It's a good enough answer when I don't want to give away the future by answering his question. That's the books job, not mine." I said, explaining the reason to why I didn't answer the way he wanted it to be answered.

Some of the Gods smirked at my answer being amused by my attitude towards the questions and the way how I handle things. Percy and Nico were snickering quietly to themselves at Zeus reaction.

"How do you know that Jason and I are together?" Piper asked, her voice being soothing as she used her charm-speak on me.

I raised my eyebrow and gave her a look, surprising her that her charm speaking isn't working on me. "Spoilers."

"B-but how did that not work on you?" Piper stammered in shock that it didn't work on me.

"You will find a lot of things do not work on me. Charm-speaking is one of them. Maybe I got from after what happened between Fate and I. Or maybe I was just born with the immunity for certain things." I said, going back into my mysterious mood.

The ones that don't know me very well stare at me like I was some kind of freak, even some of the Gods. The ones that did know me ignored the look I was being given and just smiled at my answer.

I sighed. "Piper… I know that you and Jason are together because of the books. I have two different series with me that we will be reading. The first series is only with Percy, Annabeth, Nico, Thalia, Rachel and Tyson. The second series is with you, Jason, Leo, Hazel, and Frank along with the other six I just mentioned." I said, staring at the ceiling as I told them what the books will be about.

"You know what all we know about the future because of the books?" Hazel asked softly.

"Pretty much." I chirped.

"When you were reading them how did you react to it?" Leo asked, grinning at me.

"A bunch of things. On some parts I was yelling at the book. I was laughing on a couple parts. Then I was simply crying on others." I said, sheepishly scratching my head.

"Baby." Ares sneered, getting glared at in return by everyone.

I became perfectly still. My eye twitched and I clenched my fists in anger. Percy, Nico and the rest that know my temper grabbed the others back with them as they moved back.

"What did you say?" I gritted out, asking the War God.

"I called you a baby. What are you going to do about it?" Ares asked, mocking me.

"Lord Ares. It isn't wise to anger Shelby. I know for certain that the children that were sent back that know her do not wish to put Shelby's anger on you, and neither do I. She may not look like it, but she is far more powerful than any of the big three demigods and even the Gods." Hecate said, in her warning tone.

Hera gave Ares a look that clearly said to shut up and behave, since he became silent after Hecate warned him not to make me angry. Nico came over and pulled me over to the others to calm me down.

It took both Percy and Nico to calm me down which took a couple minutes. When I was calm, Percy ruffled my hair on my head by rubbing his hand on top of my head. I swatted at his hand to get it away from me, he dodge my hand laughing.

I glared at him as I fixed my hair back into place. Rachel came over and gave me a hug finally saying hello. Annabeth and Thalia came over as well but they both slapped my arm for being leaving but ended up giving me a hug in the end.

"Shelby, I know that you are catching up but we do need them to read the books. Can you please get them so that we can get started? The quicker we start, the early we end so that you can go back to sleep." Hecate said, gaining my attention at the word sleep.

I cheered as I skip to my backpack and quickly pull out all nine books that I own. I motioned for the time travelers to come closer as I plopped myself on the ground going into the crisscross position on the floor.

They all sit by me waiting to read the books. I throw the book at Annabeth to make her read it first smiling when Percy's eyes widen at the title of the book being the first to see it besides Annabeth since they are sitting next to each other.

I lay down to take a nap putting my head on Nico's leg, making it my pillow ignoring the love-dovey look I got from Aphrodite.

**"Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief." **Annabeth started, but only to get interrupted by Zeus.

"YOU STOLE MY MASTER BOLT?!" Zeus roared at Percy, in anger he throws his master bolt at him.

I moved so fast from my spot on Nico's leg to in front of Percy before anyone could blink. All they could see was a red flash that went in front of Percy before the bolt hit him.

When the dust cleared, everyone saw me holding onto the master bolt with my bare hand. The bolt was sizzling hot to hold but I didn't let go of it for a second since I was only thinking of protecting Percy. My hand burns in pain and blood drips down on the ground.

The Gods, and the quintet that don't know what my capabilities are, are shocked by the display I was holding the master bolt unscathed with only a hand wound.

"Lord Zeus. I do not take my friends being threatened or hurt by others very well. Let Annabeth continue reading the book, you will find who stole your master book by listening not making assumptions right off the bat and then trying to obliterate Percy for not hearing his side of the story which is exactly what we are doing." I said deathly calm, as my energy flared around me giving me a red hue as it seeped out.

Zeus just stared not blinking at me but slowly blinked then smiled, admiring my guts to talk back at him. The others were impressed I didn't get electrocuted where I stand.

"Impressive." Ares wolf whistled at me only to shut up when I turned my attention on him and flared my killing intent and my energy even more.

I stared at the War God for a few more seconds until I reigned back in my energy, letting out my breath as I sighed in relief.

I enveloped the master bolt in my energy to make it vanish then reappear in Zeus's hand having enough of it in my hand not liking the way it was burning in my hand. I take bandages out of my bag and wrap my dominate hand which is my right and lay back down again using Nico's leg as a pillow.

Annabeth sensing everything was good to go and continue reading started reading again.

**"I Accidently Vaporize My Pre-Algebra Teacher." **Annabeth read the title of the first chapter.

"Really? How did you do that?" Leo asked staring at Percy.

Percy grinned sheepishly. "I guess it will be in the book." He said rubbing his head.

**Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

"Who does?" All the demigods mutter.

"I do!" I mumble quietly, hoping nobody heard me.

"Why? You already have amazing abilities." Nico whispered to me.

"I don't know. Ever since I read these books I always wanted to be a demigod regardless what kind of trouble they can get into." I whispered back.

**If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is:**

"Run! Percy is giving advice!" Thalia yelled.

"Why?" Hermes asked, not getting why they needed to run.

"Things happen that we didn't want to happen when Percy gives us advice." Nico replied grinning.

"I give great advice! Things just… don't go the way I hope whenever I do." Percy said indignantly.

"I agree with Nico and Thalia! I've read the books, I know how what happens when he gives advice." I declared, raising up my injured hand and waving it around almost smacking Nico in the face with it.

Percy pouted at me as everyone laughed at my remark.

**Close this book right now. Believe whatever lies your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life. Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. **

**Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways. If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened. **

**But if you recognize yourself in these pages—if you feel something stirring inside—stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

"That's actually great advice." Annabeth said, stopping from reading to compliment Percy but continued to read before anybody could say anything.

**Don't say I didn't warn you**.

"You didn't warn me!" Nico shouted, moving his leg from out of under my head making me smack my head on the ground.

"Nico. How could he when he just met you when you were already being attacked by a monster. It's not like he could have just told you that if you had a weird feeling inside of you and told you were a demigod to an unknown parent at the time, no offense Hades they didn't know at the time, you could have done anything to get away and hide in a room." I growled at Nico, not happy he made my head smack on the ground.

I glared at Nico as he tried to have me go back to use his leg as a pillow. I ignored him as I crawl over to Rachel and used her leg as a pillow instead of Nico, which annoyed him very much.

**My name is Percy Jackson.**

"Really? I didn't know that." I muttered sarcastically, being in a bad mood I couldn't help but to comment.

Everyone sensing my mood wisely didn't say anything or they would have faced my wraith.

**I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

**Am I a troubled kid?**

"YES." Everyone said except for Tyson and the Gods causing Percy to pout.

**Yeah. You could say that.**

"Ha! You even admit it!" Leo and Nico laughed, while the others smirked at Percy enjoying the book so far.

**I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan— twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"Ooo… Hecate can you take me to the Metropolitan Museum! I've only been to the American Museum of Natural History!" I asked, my eyes shining in excitement at the prospect to look at the art.

"When we are done here I'll take you." Hecate said, not wanting to spoil my excitement.

"Yay!" I cheered.

**I know—it sounds like torture.**

"For demigods' maybe that isn't related to Athena." I chirped getting a high five from Rachel and Annabeth, and a smile from Athena.

"Weren't you going to take a nap?" Nico said glaring at me.

In answer I just stuck out my tongue at him, making Aphrodite to giggle at the scene. I ignored her and put my attention back onto the book.

_'I don't like him like that, Lady Aphrodite. It wouldn't work between us anyways, you will find out in the second series later on.'_ I thought.

**Most Yancy field trips were.**

**But Mr. Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

**Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

"Chiron?" Piper asked whispering to Percy.

"Yeah it is." Percy whispered back.

**I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.** **Boy, was I wrong.** **See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

"What were you aiming for?" I asked Percy.

"I don't remember." Percy said, shrugging his shoulders.

I pouted, not getting the answer I wanted.

**And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.**

"No! We want to hear more!" The three idiots whined (Apollo, Hermes, and Leo) that were enjoying the things Percy did.

**This trip, I was determined to be good.**

"Yea… Like that is going to happen." I muttered.

**All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.** **Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

"Grover…" Everyone besides the gods groaned.

**Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

I suddenly grinned evilly which creeped everyone around me out. I disappeared in a flash only to reappear a minute later whistling innocently.

"What did you do?" Thalia asked, narrowing her eyes at me.

"I'll tell you after they find out who Percy's godly parent is." I said, still grinning.

**"I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

"Do it!" Ares shouted.

**Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

**He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

"**That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

"No! Why did you stop him?!" Ares whined.

I mentally face palmed as I rolled my eyes.

"**You're already on probation," He reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

**Looking back on it, I wished I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

Everyone except for me became tensed.

**Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.** **He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.** **It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"Longer." The Gods chorused together.

**He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a _stele, _for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

**Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

Both Annabeth and Nico asked Percy a silent question with their eyes. Percy nodded his head and Annabeth continued on with reading.

**From her first day, Mrs. Dodd's loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

**One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodd's was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

"Satyrs." Dionysus muttered shaking his head.

Poseidon was clutching his throne tightly with his hands in worry. He quickly relaxed before any of the other Gods noticed what he was doing.

**Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art. Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"**

**It came out louder than I meant it to. The whole group laughed.**

Everyone laughed, while Percy slouched to hide the blush on his face.

**Mr. Brunner stopped his story.**

**"Mr. Jackson," he said, "Did you have a comment?"**

**My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

**Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?**

**I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

All the Gods except for Zeus shuddered at the memory.

**"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied, "And he did this because ..."**

**"Well..." I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god,**

"WHAT!" Zeus yelled, glaring down at Percy.

I rolled my eyes as Percy glared back and told him that he was only twelve and he knows now.

**And—"**

**"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.**

**"Titan," I corrected myself. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead.**

"Lord Zeus, did you look like a rock when you were a baby? Is that how you managed to grow up to defeat your dad?" I asked, causing all the Gods except for Zeus himself to laugh at my question.

"I don't look like a rock!" Zeus shouted.

**And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters—"**

**"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

**"—and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "And the gods won."**

"You managed to shorten a war that lasted years in just a couple sentences." Apollo deadpanned, while Hermes snickered to himself.

Percy shrugged turning his attention back to the book missing Artemis smacking her brother.

**Some snickers came from the group.**

**Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

**"And why, Mr. Jackson," Brunner said, "To paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Oh to help be prepared to fight any monsters that may want to kill or capture on orders by evil beings." I muttered, sitting up clearly not getting the nap I wanted.

**"Busted," Grover muttered.**

**"Shut up," Nancy hissed her face even brighter red than her hair.**

**At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

**I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

**"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodd's, would you lead us back outside?"**

**The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

**Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson."**

**I knew that was coming.**

**I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner.**

**"Sir?"**

**Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

"He's older than that." Hades said.

**"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.**

**"About the Titans?"**

**"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

**"Oh."**

**"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

**I wanted to get angry; this guy pushed me so hard.**

**I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armour and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped.**

**But Mr Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life. No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

**I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

**He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

**The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

**Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas.**

Everyone gives Zeus pointed stares. He grumbles under his breath.

**We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, and wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

"I blame you." Zeus muttered to Poseidon, while Poseidon just rolled his eyes.

**Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodd's wasn't seeing a thing.**

**Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

**"Detention?" Grover asked.**

**"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."**

"Yup." I chirped, dodging the smack from Percy that was aimed at the back of my head.

I stuck my tongue out at him.

**Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

**I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

**I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

"Aww." I cooed, as I ruffled his head messing up his hair.

He glared at me as he smacked my hand away from his head to fix his hair.

**Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

**I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

**"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

I grinned the evil smile again at the thought of what I did to Nancy.

"What did you do to Nancy?" Percy asked, noticing my evil smile.

"Nothing…" I replied still smiling evilly.

**I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

"A wave?" Hades and Zeus looked to Poseidon with suspicion.

**I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

**Mrs. Dodd's materialized next to us.**

**Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"**

**"—the water—"**

**"—like it grabbed her—"**

"POSEIDON!" Zeus screamed, "YOU BROKE THE OATH!" Poseidon sat on his throne looking disdainfully at his youngest brother; Hades had yet to say anything.

"Yes yes he did break the oath, but so did you. Twice might I say with the same woman in both your Greek form and then your Roman one." I said, with my arms over my chest giving Zeus a hard stare.

**I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

**As soon as Mrs. Dodd's was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodd's turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester.**

**"Now, honey—"**

**"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

**That wasn't the right thing to say.**

**"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

**"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. _I _pushed her."**

**I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

**She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

**"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.**

**"But—"**

**"You—_will_**—**stay—here."**

**Grover looked at me desperately.**

**"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

**"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "_Now_."**

**Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

**I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

"Shelby's is much worse." Percy, Annabeth, Thalia, and Nico said in unison.

"Really?" I asked, surprised that my 'I'll kill you' stare is much worse than Percy's.

"Yes." They chorused together.

"Sweet." I said, grinning,

**Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

**How'd she get there so fast?**

**I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

**I wasn't so sure.** **I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

**Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

**I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

**Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

**But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

"Nope. I should know. My plans never work out the way I want them too." I grumbled, making some of the Gods and my friends to give me a worried look.

**I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

**Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

Ares smirked, but quickly stopped smirking when he felt my glare on him.

**Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

**Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it...**

**"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

**I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

**She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

**The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

**She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

**I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am."**

**Thunder shook the building.**

**"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

"What else was stolen besides Zeus's Master Bolt?" Athena asked, figuring out something else was stolen along with the master bolt.

**I didn't know what she was talking about.**

**All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

"That reminds me, when we all leave and I go back home I should start reading Tom Sawyer." I said, making a reminder for myself.

**"Well?" she demanded.**

**"Ma'am, I don't..."**

**"Your time is up," she hissed.**

**Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

"HADES! YOU SENT A FURY AFTER MY SON!" Poseidon roared, about to lunge off his throne to choke him when he was stopped by a force field.

"Poseidon, I know that you are angry, but that is nothing compared to what Percy has actually dealt with in the future in the other books. Please calm down and let Annabeth continue reading." I said, make an energy field around his throne to keep him from attacking Hades.

Poseidon scowled as he slumped back into his throne, glaring at Hades.

**Then things got even stranger.**

**Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

**"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

**Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

**With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

**Mrs. Dodd's spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

**My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

"Wimp." Ares sneered.

I snapped my fingers and a bucket filled with cow manure appears above Ares head and proceeds to dump it all over him. I waved my hand at Ares making the moisture in the air rain down for a couple seconds to wash off the cow manure off of him.

"Cow manure, really?" Ares muttered, feeling put off by having cow pies dumped on him then drenched in water.

**She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

"I want some honey." I mumbled, as I took some honey out of my bag and start eating some with a spoon.

**And she flew straight at me.**

**Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

**The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. _Hisss!_**

**Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

**I was alone.**

**There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

**Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

**My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

**Had I imagined the whole thing?**

**I went back outside.**

**It had started to rain.**

**Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

**I said, "Who?"**

**"Our teacher. Duh!"**

**I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

**She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

**I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodd's was.**

**He said, "Who?" But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

**"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

**Thunder boomed overhead.**

**I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him.**

**He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson."**

**I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

**"Sir," I said, "Where's Mrs. Dodd's?"**

**He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

**"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodd's. The pre-algebra teacher."**

**He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodd's on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodd's at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"That's the end of the first chapter." Annabeth said, finished reading.

"Shelby choose who gets to read now." Hecate said, making everyone look at me.

I look up with a spoon in my mouth from eating honey straight out of the jar. I take the spoon out of my mouth and shove the jar and spoon back into my bag. Annabeth threw the book at me as I thought over who should read the next chapter.

"Lady Athena, do you want to read?" I asked her, standing up to walk over to hand her the book.

"Sure." Athena said, taking the book from my hand and cleared her throat to start reading.

I stretched before sitting back down to listen to the next chapter.

**A/N: That's the end of the chapter. Please review!**

*** It means 'I know but you still get in a lot of trouble on your own!'**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Well thank you for those who reviewed! I give thanks to all the people that favorite and followed this story! **

**Disclaimer: I don't own any characters except for my oc's.**

**Chapter 2: Socks of Death and Losing Pants**

"**Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death," **Athena stopped as everyone yelled at Percy.

"YOU SAW THE FATES?!" Everyone yelled at Percy, who flinched and scooted behind me to escape everyone's glares since he never told them about the fates.

"Lady Athena please continue before I get mauled by everyone that tries to get to Percy." I said, pleading to Athena because I do not want to get mauled for Percy's sake.

**I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr—a perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip—had been our math's teacher since Christmas.**

**Every so often I would spring a Mrs. Dodd's reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up,** **but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

"Shelby not one word." Percy glared at me, right when I opened my mouth to comment.

I closed my mouth and pouted, while everyone laughed.

**It got so I almost believed them—Mrs. Dodd's had never existed.**

**Almost.**

**But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodd's to him, he would hesitate, and then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.**

**Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.**

**I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodd's with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

"No! You are not allowed to meet her." Nico said, giving me a glare when I gave him a look saying that I wanted to meet her.

"Aw…" I pouted.

**The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. **

**One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

**I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from D's to F's. **

"Been there done that. But I did manage to pull them up to either a high C or a B." I said, yawning laying back down as I used Rachel's leg as a pillow again.

"Why did your grades drop?" Athena asked, peering down at me.

I frowned at the question. I closed my eyes to clear any pain reflecting in my eyes that they could see, then opened up my eyes to answer the question.

"My parents got a divorce when I was in eighth grade. I'm a freshmen in college now. It was hard for a couple years. I was upset, it was hard to control my temper, my grades dropped from A's and B's to D's and F's. But I managed to bring them back up." I said, trying to keep the pain out of my voice as I answer the question.

"That's why you don't talk about your dad very much." Percy said, staring at me.

"Among other reasons that also go with the divorce. But yes, I don't talk about or to him very much anymore." I said, smiling sadly.

**I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

"That reminds me, what did you do to Nancy?" Percy asked, wondering what I did.

I shrugged. "Nothing much I just gave her some bad luck for a couple hours, like spilling her food and drinks on her, tying her shoes together, made a bucket filled with sardines dump all of it on her. I just did simple pranks like that."

**Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot.**

My eyebrows furrowed as I thought hard trying to remember what an old sot meant. I snapped my fingers when I remembered what is meant.

"Percy, it's the definition of Dionysus!" I exclaimed sitting up, pointing at the Wine God.

Everyone roared in laughter as Dionysus glared at me as he tried to strangle me with his vines but burst into flames before they could reach me, I stuck my tongue out at him in victory.

**The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

**Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

**I was homesick.**

"You're not alone. When I go on trips to different states I get homesick, missing my mom." I said, smiling at Percy.

"Wimps" Ares mocked us.

"I'm sorry. Who are you to talk when you still leave with your mother? No offense to you Lady Hera." I said smiling sweetly with a hidden promise of pain in his near future.

**I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

"That doesn't sound at all like Paul." Rachel said, confused.

"It's not. Paul is my second step-dad. This one is my first step-dad." Percy said, glaring at the ground.

**And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods outside my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

**I'd miss Latin class, too—Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

**As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

**The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the _Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology_ across my dorm room.**

"Percy!" I gasped.

Hecate rolled her eyes. "You do it too." Hecate said scolding me.

I smiled sheepishly as I scratched the back of my head as everyone laughed.

**Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon,** **or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

**I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

**I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes._ I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson._**

**I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

I cheered only to stop when Nico covered my mouth with his hand to keep me from making any more noises.

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

**I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat F I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

**I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

**I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said,"... worried about Percy, sir."**

**I froze.**

**I'm not usually an eavesdropper,**

"Really? Because I remember a time that you used Annabeth's invisible hat standing behind Nico to eavesdrop on Zo-"I managed to say in a sarcastic tone to Percy before Nico covered my mouth again.

"What was she about to say?" Annabeth asked Nico and Percy narrowing her eyes at them.

"It's probably in one of the books!" Nico and Percy said nervously.

**But I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

**I inched closer.**

**"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the_ school_! Now that we know for sure, and _they _know too—"**

**"We would only make matters worse by rushing him," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."**

**"But he may not have time. The summer solstice dead line—"**

**"Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can."**

**"Sir, he saw her..."**

**"His imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that."**

**"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."**

"Poor Grover… Hey Hecate! Can we get Grover here?" I asked, finally managing to get away from Nico sitting far away from him as possible going in between Frank and Leo.

"Why not. But I will have to bring someone from your world if I am going to bring the satyr here." Hecate said.

My eye started to twitch. "When you say someone?" I asked, narrowing my eyes at my honorary mother.

"I am talking about one of your brothers." Hecate said, giving me a look that says I won't be able to change her mind.

"Why would you do this to me?!" I groaned, burying my head in my hands.

"Because I can. I'll be back as soon as I can with the satyr and one of your brothers." Hecate said as she vanished in a black fog.

**The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

"Good going." Nico snickered, but ended up being smacked on the head by Percy.

**Mr. Brunner went silent.**

**My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

**A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

**I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

**A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large, dark shape paused in front of the glass, and then moved on.**

**A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

**Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."**

**"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."**

**"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."**

**"Don't remind me."**

**The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.**

**I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

**Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

**Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

**"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"**

**I didn't answer.**

**"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"**

**"Just... tired."**

**I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.**

"Satyrs can sense emotions." Dionysus said, rolling his eyes at Percy's stupidity.

"I know that now." Percy grumbled.

**I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**

**But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

**The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.**

**For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

**"Percy," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."**

**His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

**I mumbled, "Okay, sir."**

**"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."**

**My eyes stung.**

**Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

**"Right," I said, trembling.**

**"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be—"**

**"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."**

**"Percy—"**

**But I was already gone.**

**On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

**The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were _rich _juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

"Hey!" All the Gods declared, glaring at Percy as I snickered to myself.

"I didn't know!" Percy said trying to defend himself.

**They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

**What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.**

**"Oh," one of the guys said. "That's cool."**

**They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**

**The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had,**

**So there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

**During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen.**

**Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

**Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.**

A bright flash filled the room, I had to shield my eyes cause of the brightness. When it was over, I saw two people standing by Hecate looking at us in confusion and excitement.

I see a tall satyr with curly brown hair, brown eyes, small horns, Caucasian skin, chin wispy beard and hairy brown goat legs. The other person is my brother Spencer. Spencer is 5'5 with brown hair and green eyes. He is currently wearing a blue Minecraft shirt and blue basketball shorts.

"Introduce yourself." Zeus said, looking down at the two of them.

"Grover Underwood, satyr, Seeker and the Lord of the Wild." Grover said.

"Lord of the Wild?" Dionysus asked raising his eyebrow.

"That's right he found Pan, it's in one of the books." I said, hugging Grover as he came over to our group to sit down.

Spencer looked over to me for help. I stand up and roll my eyes as I walk over to him.

"This is Spencer, he is one of my little brothers. I have two little brothers and an older brother." I said, poking him in the head.

He gave a wave since he was unsure why he is here.

"What are you doing that Hecate sent me here." Spencer asked as he walked over to everyone else with me.

"We are reading the Percy Jackson series, then the Heroes of Olympus series afterwards." I said as we sat down.

"Ooo... Wait don't you have a crush on one of the characters in the book?" Spencer asked all of a sudden remembering what I told him a while ago.

"NO!" I said panicking a little as I said it a little too quickly.

_'Not good. Not good!' _I shook my head vigorously telling him to stop.

"Yes you do! What was his name? … Well I don't remember his name but I remember you said it didn't matter since he is attracted to the same gender." Spencer said, nodding to himself that he remembered what I told him.

"Lady Athena PLEASE continue reading!" I asked, pleading for her to keep reading as I ignored Nico and Jason staring at me being the only two that know what Spencer was talking about.

**I said, 'looking for Kindly Ones?'"**

"Scared the crap out of me." Grover muttered, as he glared at Percy.

"Sorry." Percy said.

**Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha—what do you mean?"**

**I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.**

**Grover's eye twitched. "How much _did _you hear?"**

**"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"**

**He winced. "Look, Percy ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers …"**

**"Grover—"**

**"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodd's, and ..."**

**"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar."**

Everyone laughed.

**His ears turned pink.**

**From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.**

**The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:**

**_Grover Underwood_**

**_Keeper_**

**_Half-Blood Hill_**

**_Long Island, New York_**

**_(800)_** **_009-0009_**

**"What's Half—?"**

**"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."**

**My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

**"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion."**

**He nodded. "Or...or if you need me."**

**"Why would I need you?"**

**Why would I need you?"**

**It came out harsher than I meant it to.**

**Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Percy, the truth is, I—I kind of have to protect you."**

**I stared at him.**

**All year long, I'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended _me._**

**"Grover," I said, "What exactly are you protecting me from?"**

**There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**

**The driver cursed and steered the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

**After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have**

**We were on a stretch of country road—no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

**The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice_. _There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

**I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

**All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

**The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

**I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

**"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man—"**

**"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"**

**"Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?"**

I quickly scooted over to Percy, punched him hard on his arm and scooted all the way back beside Frank and Leo away from Nico for a bit.

Percy rubs his arm relieving the pain as he glances back and forth between Nico and I trying to figure out what was going on between us that is making me act that way.

**"Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all."**

**The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors—gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.**

**"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."**

**"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."**

**"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

**Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that _snip _across four lanes of traffic.**

**Her two friends balled up the electric blue socks, leaving me to wonder who they could possibly be for- Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

**At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

**The passengers cheered.**

"**Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"**

**Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

**Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

"**Grover?"**

"**Yeah?"**

"**What are you not telling me?"**

"Everything." Everyone said, staring at Percy.

**He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"**

**"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodd's, are they?"**

**His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodd's. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."**

**"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."**

**He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost—older.**

**He said, "You saw her snip the cord."**

**"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

**"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."**

**"What last time?"**

**"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."**

**"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "What are you talking about?"**

**"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."**

**This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

Grover glared at Percy. "Some promise."

"Sorry you were freaking me out." Percy said.

**"Is this like a superstition or something?" I asked.**

**No answer.**

**"Grover—that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?"**

**Again everyone shivered.**

**He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"That's the end of the chapter. Who is going to read next?" Athena said, asking me whose turn it is to read.

"I'll read it." Artemis said, taking the book from Athena.

"But first, we will take a break to eat then get back into the book." Zeus said, making food appear in front of us.

"Okay." Everyone chorused together as everyone except for me started eating since I went and hid myself to have a couple minutes alone.

I hid in the shadows eating my own food that I have from my bag, in the corner of the room being able to blend in with the black clothing I am wearing. I thought I wouldn't have been bothered as I ate my food when Nico plopped down next to me.

"Next time you want to eat alone, find a better hiding place one that I can't be able to sense you in. Or solidifying to keep you from leaving until I tell you something." Nico said, using his abilities over shadows to wrap it around my waist to keep me from leaving the corner.

He was just about to say something else when Zeus said that we were going back to reading the book. Before he could focus back towards me, I used that distraction to get the shadow from my waist and scurried over to Thalia to sit next to her.

He glared at me when he came over to sit down, sitting next to Leo.

"**Grover Unexpectedly Loses his Pants." **Artemis began.

"Why is this chapter called this?" Demeter asked Percy.

"I don't know. I didn't write it." Percy said shrugging.

"The chapters are pretty much based on what the chapter content is about, which is usually the case. We have to read to see why this chapter is about Grover losing his pants." I said grinning at Grover.

"If it makes you feel any better to know, Shelby lost her pants before." Spencer said, grinning at a chance to embarrass me more in front of everyone.

My face turns red from embarrassment. Everyone turns toward me to hear how I lost them.

"It was one time! We were at a lake, Spencer and I were inner tubing and during it my swimsuit bottoms came off, I tried grabbing them as I let go of the tube but I lost them." I said, glaring at Spencer.

Everyone laughs.

**Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

"You shouldn't have." Grover said, glaring at Percy.

"I said I was sorry!" Percy said.

**I know, I know. It was rude. But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?" and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"**

**Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom. Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

**"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

**A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

"She's awesome!" Annabeth, Rachel, and Grover said together.

"The best." Thalia said.

"Makes yummy food that is blue." I said, picturing the blue cake and cookies.

"Amazing and Kind." Nico added.

**Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world, which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck.**

**Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. **

**Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

**The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

**I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. **

**My mom doesn't like to talk about him because_ it _makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

**See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

**Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

**She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

**Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano, who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colors as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nick-named him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like moldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

I wrinkled my noise at imagining the smell of Gabe. While everyone scrunched their noses in disgust at the detailed description.

**Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along ... well, when I came home is a good example.**

**I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet.**

**Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

**"Where's my mom?"**

**"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

"Ass." I muttered to myself quietly.

**That was it. No _Welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?_**

**Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tuskless walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

I gagged along with everyone else.

**He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting paychecks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

"WHAT?!" Poseidon roared.

"Dad, calm down! Whether or not he hit me there is nothing we can do to him anyways. He is dealt with." Percy said, calming Poseidon down.

**"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

**He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

**Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

**"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight. Am I right, Eddie?"**

**Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy.**

**"Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

**"Am I _right_?_" _Gabe repeated.**

**Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

**"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

**"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

**I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

**I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

"Hey Percy…" I started.

"No you cannot go stab them." Percy said, knowing what I was going to ask.

I pouted, causing everyone to laugh.

**Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds,**

**Or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

**But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

**Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

**She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

**My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room.**

"Aww..." All the girls and Goddesses cooed, making Percy blush.

**Her eyes sparkle and change color in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few grey streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.**

**I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

**"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

**Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, licorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.**

"Lucky… I want some candy…" Spencer muttered.

I rolled my eyes and chucked a bag filled with candy (skittles, starbursts, and sour patches) that are his favorites at him. It hits him right in the chest. When he looks through the bag his eyes light up.

Everyone that is sitting around me gives me the puppy eyes and pouting, wanting candy. I sighed as I take out a huge bag from my backpack filled with all kinds of candy putting it in the middle of the group.

**We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

**I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

"Aww…" All the girls said.

**From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

**I gritted my teeth.**

"Can I please go and stab him?" I asked, pleading for some violence towards Gabe.

"I said no!" Percy said, glaring at me.

"Seriously Shelby? You always say you want to stab or bite someone. Then other times you say that 'my bear will eat your liver' and 'my cow will devour your soul'." Spencer said, shaking his head at my behavior.

The Gods and the quintet that don't know me very well (Jason, Leo, Frank, Hazel, and Piper) looked at me in confusion, while the others snickered quietly to themselves knowing why I say them.

I shrugged. "I don't like cussing very much, instead I say 'I will bite or stab you' and 'my bear will eat your liver' or 'my cow will devour your soul' when I am annoyed at someone or angry. But sometimes if I am really mad I do tend to cuss at people.

"But you say it all the time!" Spencer said obnoxiously.

"Yes, yes I do. I say it all the time because I get annoyed quite often by either you or Logan." I said, raising my eyebrow at him.

**My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

"Percy I'm glad your mom has Paul now and not some other guy." I said, smiling towards Percy.

"How do you know?" Spencer asked.

"The books, if you actually finish the first series then you would know what I am talking about and I actually meet them." I said, sticking my tongue at my brother.

**For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself.**

**I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

**Until that trip to the museum...**

**"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

**"No, Mom."**

"Liar!" Everyone shouted.

**I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

"Your mother would have understand, she's clear sighted." Poseidon said, surprising his siblings that Percy's mom was clear sighted.

"I didn't know at the time, I thought I was crazy! I didn't want to tell my mom crazy things." Percy said.

"Clear sighted? What's that?" Spencer asked, not knowing what it meant.

My eye twitched in irritation. _'If you read the whole series and not have stopped on the first book you would know what it means.' _Is what I wanted to say but instead I said this.

"Clear sight is the ability to see through the Mist, the force that hides the truth from most humans. Some humans are born with this gift. The Mist is a supernatural force controlled by Hecate that twists a human's sight from seeing monsters, Gods, Titans, and various other mythical creatures and supernatural occurrences by replacing them with things the human mind knows about and can comprehend which includes seeing magical weapons, as Percy's sword Riptide sometimes appears as a rifle or a baseball bat. Sally Jackson- Percy's mom, and Rachel before she became the Oracle of Delphi, has the ability to see through the Mist." I said, explaining the whole clear sight and the Mist to Spencer.

"Right… And how do you know all that?" Spencer asked.

"Listen to me very carefully." I said, with firmness in my voice.

"Okay…" Spencer said.

"READ THE BOOKS!" I growled.

He puts up his hands giving me an 'I surrender don't hurt me' gesture as he scoots back a bit away from me.

**She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

**"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

**My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

**"Three nights—same cabin."**

**"When?"**

**She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

**I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

**Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

**I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

**"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

**Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

**"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

"He better." Poseidon muttered darkly, causing everyone to shiver in fear as the room becomes humid.

**"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your step father is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

**Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip ... it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

I quickly plugged my ears knowing what is coming, giving Annabeth, Thalia, Hazel, Piper, and Rachel a discreet sign to plug them with me.

"WHAT?! HE DID NOT JUST SAY THAT!? YOU CAN'T PUT A BUDGET ON CLOTHES?!" Aphrodite screamed, making everyone in the throne room deaf for a few seconds from how loud she screamed.

All the guys except for Tyson, glared at me for not warning them beforehand that she was going to scream in outrage. While the girls I told to plug their ears gave me thankful smiles.

**"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

**"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

**"We'll be very careful."**

**Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip ... And maybe if the kid apologizes for interrupting my poker game."**

"How about kicking you where the sun doesn't shine." I muttered evilly.

**Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

"DO IT!" Ares shouted, wanting the violence.

"Shelby thought like Percy!? The world is coming to an end!" Leo exclaimed while I rolled my eyes.

**But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

"Aww." Ares whined.

**Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

**"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

**Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

**"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

**He went back to his game.**

**"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about... whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

**For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

**But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

**An hour later we were ready to leave.**

**Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

**"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

Percy and Grover burst out laughing remembering what happened to Gabe's car. I snickered quietly. Everyone gives them weird looks.

"You'll see." Percy choked out in mid laugh.

**Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve. But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

**Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain. As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the stair case as if he'd been shot from a cannon. Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

"I still don't know how he did that." I muttered.

"Don't over think it. I still don't know how I did it." Percy chuckled.

**I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

**Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in. I loved the place.**

**We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

**As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the color of the sea.**

**We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine.**

**We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls, and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

"What's with all the blue food?" Zeus asked.

**I guess I should explain the blue food.**

**See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue. She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

"More like an obedience one." I snorted, getting a high five from Thalia and Annabeth.

**When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

**Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father. Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

**"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

Everyone looked at Percy and Poseidon noticing what the book said.

**Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

**I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

"I don't care about that, Percy." Poseidon said.

**"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean ... when he left?"**

**She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

**"But... he knew me as a baby."**

**"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

**I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember ... something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

"I did visit you." Poseidon admitted.

**I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me...**

**I felt angry at my father.**

Poseidon became tensed bowing his head in shame.

**Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

"I don't feel that way anymore." Percy said, understanding why he did what he had to do.

**"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

**She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

**"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think ... I think we'll have to do something."**

**"Because you don't want me around?"**

"Percy!" Annabeth, Thalia, and Rachel angrily yelled.

Percy flinched. "I was ashamed as soon as I said it."

**I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

"Good." Everyone said, nodding to themselves accepting it.

**My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I—I _have _to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away." Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

**"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

**"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realize how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

**"Safe from what?"**

"Oh nothing, just Zeus and Hades and some monsters out to get you." Nico and I said.

**She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me-all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

**During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

"Why was Brother Cyclops at Percy's school?" Tyson asked.

"I sent him to make sure Percy was alright and safe." Poseidon said.

**Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

"Like Hercules." Ares said.

The room becomes tense at the mention of Hercules. Percy and Thalia were glaring at the ground. Some of the seven, mostly Jason and Piper were also glaring at the ground at the mention of Hercules.

"What's the matter with them?" Zeus asked, not getting why everyone is angry at Hercules.

None of the Seven, Grover, Tyson, Rachel, Thalia, or Nico wanted to say anything. I shook my head and sighed.

"It's explained in two books. One in this series, and the other in the Heroes of Olympus series. He deserted and betrayed Zoe, and he is an A class jerk. More will be explained in the books." I said, keeping the anger out of my voice.

**In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

**I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword. But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

"Percy…" Everyone groaned.

"At the time, my mom and I weren't alone in years and she hadn't had a vacation in a while either." Percy explained.

**"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy-the place your father wanted to send you. And I just... I just can't stand to do it."**

**"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

**"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

"Camp Half-Blood!" All of the Seven, Tyson, Rachel, Nico, Thalia, Grover, and I cheered.

"Why are you cheering?" Spencer asked me, in confusion.

"I've been there before. I can stay in any cabins I want, but I mostly just stay in both Percy's, and Annabeth's cabin. Or the Artemis cabin when Thalia and the other hunters are at the camp. Sometimes I stay outside to be with nature and the animals." I said, shrugging.

"Does Chiron and I know?" Dionysus asked, surprising us that he is paying attention.

"I think so. Neither Chiron nor you said anything when I first started staying in the cabins. I mean I was able to enter the camp when I'm not a demigod, but I do have the abilities of one… More like all of them, but that doesn't happen until around the fourth or fifth book of this series, which I don't exist in at all." I said.

"You don't? How is that possible?" Apollo said, staring at me confused.

I face palmed as I groaned at his stupidity knowing how Artemis feels now. Artemis rolled her eyes and shot an arrow at his leg.

"Oww! Why did you do that sis?" Apollo shouted in pain.

"Because you are an idiot and don't call me sis!" Artemis said.

**y head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

**"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good."**

**"For good? But if it's only a summer camp ..."**

**She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

**That night I had a vivid dream.**

"Hate your dreams Percy, something bad always happens." Annabeth, Thalia, and Nico said

**It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

Everyone gave Zeus and Poseidon pointed stares.

**The eagle swooped down and slashed at the horses muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

"Hades." Zeus and Poseidon said together.

"Not Hades." The ones who knew who it really was muttered.

**I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, _No!_**

"Ha! I won!" Zeus said.

We rolled our eyes at his behavior.

**I woke with a start.**

**Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

**With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

**I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten. Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

**Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

"I wonder who that will be…" I said, rolling my eyes.

Grover slapped the back of my head while Thalia shocked my arm.

**My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

**Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't... he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"How is that possi…? Oh. I get it." Leo said.

**"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

"We could have avoided what happened if you didn't break your promise!" Grover said glaring at Percy.

"I said I was sorry! And I know!" Percy said.

**My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**

**"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

**I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

**_"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" _****he yelled. "It's right behind me! Didn't you _tell _her?"**

**I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—and where his legs should be ... where his legs should be...**

**My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Tell me now!"**

**I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs Dodd's, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

**She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"**

**Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly. He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters, and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

**Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

"That's the end of the chapter. Who wants to read next?" Artemis said.

"I will!" Leo said excitedly.

He jumps up and takes the book from Artemis's hand and plops back down by Jason and Piper to read.

"Leo if you make my book catch on fire, I will hurt you." I said, glaring at Leo.

He gulped. "Okay."

"Good!" I said giving him a smile.

"So… How do you not exist in the books?" Apollo asked, dodging an arrow from Artemis.

I glanced at Hecate quickly getting a nod to go ahead and explain to the Sun God.

"Because I wasn't written in it by the Author, who wrote the books. But I am able to go to other worlds/dimensions because of what Fate did to me.* Sometimes I end up in the worlds on accident and other times because I am bored at home I want to meet my favorite characters from books I read, movies, and TV shows." I said.

"How does going to other worlds work?" Hermes asked curiously.

"I make portals that throws me out of them sometimes. Then on the accidents I try doing things I see on my TV shows not knowing that it will actually work and end up sending me to that world. Other times my TV is a portal to a field of different TVs that lead to other worlds. I really don't know how those work but when I make the portals, my energy and a bit of my blood is needed to make it." I said, scratching the back of my head.

"It throws you out?! That's hilarious!" Ares and Spencer laughed.

My eye twitched in irritation as I glared at the War God and rolled my eyes at Spencer used to his laughing on the portal matter.. _'How would you like it if you made a portal then threw you out afterwards…'_ I thought glaring at Ares.

"Were the side effects of you being thrown out of the portal?" Zeus, Poseidon, Hera, Hades, the quintet, Hestia, Demeter, and Dionysus asked, while Aphrodite, Athena, and Artemis were thinking.

I scowled. "Sort of." I said not wanting to elaborate much about it.

"You either put too much or too little energy into it." Athena concluded.

"Pretty much." I said, grinning at Athena knowing that she would be able to figure it out.

"What's your thoughts on beauty?!" Aphrodite asked smiling, clapping her hands together in glee at whatever so just thought of.

"I believe inner beauty is what truly counts." I said giving it a moment of thought.

Aphrodite's smile dropped a bit giving me a frown. "Don't you want to put make up on and look pretty?" She asked, staring at me in confusion.

"Well yes, but I only really put all of my makeup on when it's a special occasion, like my birthday, special events and holidays. Other times I only put mascara, and eyeliner on. I believe that true beauty in a women is reflected from in her soul. The caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows. Our personality, intelligence, grace, politeness, charisma, integrity, congruence and elegance are what I think truly matters. If someone wants to enhance their appearance a bit there is nothing wrong with it." I said, answering from my heart.

Aphrodite looked at me in silence. A few minutes pass with her silently staring at me when she gives me a megawatt beaming smile agreeing completely with my answer.

"Any good with weapons?" Ares asked, at the same time as Artemis asking her own question.

"You don't have a problem with the animals when you stay outside?" Artemis asked, glaring a bit at Ares for asking at the same time as her.

I ignored Ares question and proceeded to answer Artemis. "Nope, not at all. I feel more at ease being outside with animals when I am upset about something or I need some peace and quiet."

"Interesting." Was all she said.

"Weapons!?" Ares growled at me not liking that I ignored him.

I rolled my eyes. "You need to chill… Let's see… Bow and arrows, anything that involves throwing things: axes, knifes, and clubs. Slingshots, spears, shurikens, boomerang, chakrams, kunai, and crossbows. I hate guns, but it doesn't mean I don't know how to use them. Any blunt weapons really, Bo staffs. Tiger claws are pretty much the only hand or fist weapons I know. Some of the shortswords. Almost all of the swords. Knifes and daggers. But the main things I am good at are Katanas and two bladed swords like the flame-bladed sword." I said listing them off not noticing everyone's shocked expression.

"Any more questions or can we continue reading now?" Zeus asked everyone.

No one says anything as we all look around seeing if anyone had any more questions but no one did. So Leo began reading the next chapter.

…

**A/N: AAND THAT'S THE END OF THE CHAPTER! So two questions I have for all of you. One, should I keep Nico gay, make him bi, or straight? Two, any more characters to send back to read the books and who will it be? Please review or pm me for any ideas, I will greatly appreciate it. Keep a look out for the Percy Jackson story that will be posted in a month or two about my oc Shelby transported into the Percy Jackson universe sometime in the fourth or fifth book in the first series. I'm not sure yet and I don't quite have a title yet. Any whose I'll try to update as quickly as I can.**

* **Read Fiction Becomes Reality or Backlash Wave of a Portal to find out.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: I'm back~! Thanks for all who favorite/followed this story and those who reviewed, it helped a bunch! My mind was pretty much yelling at me saying 'Chop Chop Ciulla Ciulla' (that my grandmother always says) to hurry up and write this chapter before I was too busy, so I did.**

**Spencer: So do you still have a crush on that one guy from the books?**

**Squirpsdolphin/Shelby: …**

**Spencer: Well?**

**Squirpsdolphin/Shelby: I don't own anything except for my oc's and a slight change with one of the Percy Jackson characters.**

**_" " Animal talking/thinking_**

**Chapter 3: Bull Fighting and Playing Pinochle**

**"My Mother Teaches me Bullfighting," **Leo read.

"I didn't know your mom could bull-fight Percy." Ares said, curiosity in his tone.

"She can't" Percy snapped at him, as everyone who knew what happens in this chapter (Grover, and I) glares at him.

Poseidon paled, and Annabeth asks Percy a silent question to which he nods at her answering her silent question.

**We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the wind shield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

"My kind of driving." Ares smirked, thinking of going to hit on Percy's mom.

I glared at his tone and chucked a knife that poofed into existence at his head, missing on purpose.

**Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

"Percy!" Grover said glaring at Percy.

"Sorry man, I didn't know you were a satyr back then." Percy said.

**But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

"PERCY!" Grover growled, looking at Percy like he wanted to gut him.

"Sorry!" Percy gulped as he put up his hands and scooted behind me for protection.

**All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"**

**Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

"Stalker." I coughed out, making Apollo, Hermes, and Leo laugh while getting a hit in the back of my head by courtesy of Grover.

**"Watching me?"**

**"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I _am _your friend."**

**"Urn ... what _are _you, exactly?"**

**"That doesn't matter right now."**

**"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey-"**

"I'm a goat!" Grover grunted in annoyance giving Percy a look.

**Grover let out a sharp, throaty _"Blaa-ha-ha!"_**

**I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.**

**"Goat!" he cried.**

**"What?"**

**"I'm a _goat_ from the waist down."**

**"You just said it didn't matter."**

**_"Blaa-ha-ha!_** **There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"**

"Really?" I said, thinking with a certain look on my face.

"Shelby…" Everybody, except the Gods and the quintet groaned.

"What? I need the training." I said.

**"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

**"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodd's a myth?"**

**"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodd's!"**

"You're slow. It took you five years to realize… something. Come on Percy!" I said, rolling to the side dodging an incoming whack to the head from Percy.

Percy turns red in the face in embarrassment as the Gods and the quintet look at him in confusion. While the others silently laugh to themselves knowing what I am talking about.

"I thought I was going crazy, so someone admitting that I wasn't was a relief. And that was completely different!" Percy said, glaring halfheartedly at me.

"What are you talking about?" Apollo asked not getting what I meant.

"You will find out in the last book of this series." I said smirking.

**"Of course."**

**"Then why—"**

**"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."**

**"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

"He means that you are a demigod." Everyone said.

"I know that, now!" Percy shouted.

**The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

Poseidon paled, not liking the whole something is chasing after them part and how it is still on their trail.

**"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

**"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

"Oh, nobody much just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood thirstiest minions. And every monster in mythology." I muttered.

Leo snickered as he read the next line.

**"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

"Grover!" Everyone yelled then laughed realizing I said the same thing that Grover said in the book.

I shrugged when everyone laughed, while Poseidon glared at Hades.

"Why am I after my nephew?" Hades asked, shifting in his seat uncomfortably from Poseidon's glare.

"It's in the book." Was my answer to his question.

**"Grover!"**

**"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

"Yes, drive faster please." Poseidon pleaded.

**I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.**

"I can~!" I chirped, taking pride in my weirdness and my weird dreams I get quite often.

"What are they about?" Hermes curiously asked.

"Well in one of them, I was sitting in a restaurant and an old lady gave me a goat.*****" I said, thinking back to the weirdest dream I ever had.

Everyone looked at me strangely then went back to listening to the book.

**My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

**"Where are we going?" I asked.**

**"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

"Camp Half-blood!" All the demigods, Rachel, Tyson, Grover and I shouted.

**"The place you didn't want me to go."**

**"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

**"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

**"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means-the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to…when someone's about to die."**

"Was it his life cord? Or not?" Hades asked me.

"I don't know and I don't remember. You will have to find out by reading the books." I said shrugging.

**"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

**"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

**"You meant 'you.' As in me."**

**"I meant you, like 'someone'. Not you, you."**

"BRAIN HURTS." I whined, rubbing my temples.

**"Boys!" my mom said.**

**She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

I furrowed my brows in thought. "Do you think it was one of the kindly ones?" I asked the group.

Poseidon made a small sound in the back of his throat to my answer. Everyone shrugged and Leo went back to reading.

**"What was that?" I asked.**

**"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question.**

"Hurray for not getting answers!" I cheered.

**"Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

"Please. Please. Please." Poseidon whimpered, echoing her.

I got up from the floor and walked over to him. I patted him on the head. "There there." I said trying to soothe his nerves.

**I didn't know where _there _was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

**Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really _hadn't _been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

"Well no shit Sherlock." I said, rolling my eyes as I walked back to the group on the floor.

"Shelby!" Everyone growled at me.

"I'm sorry." I said, sitting down a couple feet away from everyone so I wouldn't get hit.

**Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling _boom!, _and our car exploded.**

"WHAT!" Poseidon shouted.

"He's fine. Calm down." I said to the Sea God trying to calm him down.

**I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

"It sucks." I muttered, knowing how he felt then.

"Wait. You have been crushed, fried, and hosed down before?" Leo asked, as he stopped reading for just a second.

"Yup." I said, frowning not liking how I experienced all three of them.

"HOW!?" Everyone asked.

"You don't want to know…" I said, shaking my head.

**I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

**"Percy!" my mom shouted.**

**"I'm okay..."**

**I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

**Lightning.**

"What!" Everyone yelled, except for Zeus, Grover, and Percy the last two knowing about it already.

I yawned as Poseidon stood up from his throne and began stomping his way to Zeus.

By now everyone was glaring at Zeus, not liking how he struck the car while Sally, Percy, and Grover where in the car when it hit. Poseidon almost made it to Zeus when I made him disappear and then reappeared back on his throne with a force field around him while he fumed in anger.

**That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

**He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

"Thanks Percy." Grover muttered dryly.

**Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

Everyone laughed.

Grover groaned, putting his head in his hands in embarrassment.

I pat his head as I scooted over to sit next to him and Tyson.

**"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.**

**I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

"Is that…?" Piper, and Frank gulped.

"You will find out." I said, as I stood up, stretching my muscles.

**I swallowed hard. "Who is—?"**

**"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

**My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

**"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

**_"What?"_**

**Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

"That's me!" Thaila shouted.

"You were a tree?" Leo, Piper, Jason, Frank, and Hazel said.

"Yup." Thaila said, not saying anything more about the matter.

"How are you not a tree anymore?" They asked, being confused that she isn't a tree anymore.

"It's explained in the next book." I informed them.

**"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

**"Mom, you're coming too."**

"She can't." Poseidon said sadly.

**Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

**"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

**"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

Everyone laughed. Grover turned bright red and began muttering under his breathe. I was able to catch some of the words he said. They sounded like 'Percy sucks' and 'thanks a lot Percy'.

**The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he _couldn't _be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns …**

"YOU FOUGHT THE FREAKIN' MINOTAUR?" Jason exclaimed, suddenly standing up.

Piper, Leo, Frank, Hazel and Rachel gasped in surprise.

Leo didn't even wait for an answer to Jason's question. Instead, he kept reading.

**"He doesn't want _us_," my mother told me. "He wants _you. _Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

**"But..."**

**"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

**I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat,**

Everyone laughed quietly, while Grover blushed.

"I'm only part goat!" He said.

**At the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

"Moooo~!" I mooed like a cow.

"He's not part cow but part bull." They told me.

I just shrugged. "Yea… I don't really care, instead of calling him what he is called I either call him Mr. Cow or bull guy."

**I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

**"I told you—"**

**"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

Percy winced, going unnoticed to everyone except for me. I plopped myself down by him and Annabeth being finished with my stretching.

**I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

**Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

"You should cut the grass." I said to Dionysus.

He just ignores me, I glare at him and turned back to the book.

**Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of _Muscle Man_ magazine-bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear-**

**I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms-which would have looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary.**

**His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

**I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

"He's real alright." Hades muttered.

**I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

**"Pasiphae's son," my mother said.**

"She's smart." Athena said praising Sally's intelligence.

**"I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

**"But he's the Min—"**

**"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

**The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

**I glanced behind me again.**

**The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

**"Food?" Grover moaned.**

**"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

**"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

**As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

**_Not a scratch, _****I remembered Gabe saying.**

**Oops.**

"HURRAH! Suck it, Gabe!" I cheered standing up, but getting yanked down by Percy.

Everyone erupted in laughter.

**"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

**"How do you know all this?"**

**"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

"You weren't selfish." Hera, Athena, Demeter and Artemis said.

**"Keeping me near you? But—"**

**Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

**He'd smelled us.**

**The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.**

**The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

**My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

**I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

"Great… He smells just like a zombie, but without the burning flesh and rotten eggs smell.*****" I muttered, gagging a bit.

Nico looked at me and mouthed 'zombie' asking how I know the smell of one. I just smiled grimly and shook my head telling him to drop it and that he doesn't want to know.

**He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

Poseidon whimpered, as everyone gulped in a huge breathe.

**The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

Then everyone let it out in relief.

**The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

**We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

**The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

**"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

**But I just stood there frozen in fear, as the monster charged her.**

Percy shut his eyes tightly and clenched his hands into fists. I noticed and began scratching his back to calm him down. Annabeth smiled at the display knowing that I consider him as a friend and even a brother.

**She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.**

**"Mom!"**

**She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"**

**Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply…gone.**

"NO!" Everyone yelled, even the ones that knew what happened yelled, like Spencer, Percy, Grover, Annabeth and I.

Annabeth and the girls had tears in their eyes, some wondering why we were talking about Sally like we knew her if she is gone and the others that know she is still alive are wrecked with nerves wondering what will happen next.

**"No!"**

**Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

"Here comes ass kicking Percy!" Nico, Leo, Frank, and I said smirking.

**The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

**I couldn't allow that.**

"Aww. Bro love." I said, grinning at Percy and Grover.

Percy cracked a smile from having a sad smile when he had to go through listening to his mom disappearing again. Grover gave me a thumbs up for my success.

**I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

**"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey stupid! Ground beef!"**

"Ahh… insults… I never run out of them. But of course I just say truthfully how I see people which I don't mean for them to be an insult most of the time." I sighed.

"Give me an example." Leo said, ignoring most of the groups hand motions not to ask me.

"Let's see… When I first meet people I give them nicknames based on their looks, if they are my friends, or if I just meet them. For example, a friend of mine from a different world has a head that looks like a pineapple. I call him pineapple head, with a few other of my friends also. I call Nico, Ghost Boy for well multiple reasons. One, he is the Ghost King. Two, Hades son. And three, because I can. That's pretty much all I can think of on top of my head." I said, scratching my head.

"What would you call me?" Leo asked.

"There is a few I would call you. But the main one is Repair Boy." I said shrugging.

"Awesome." Leo cheered.

"What about everyone else?" Jason asked, wanting to know what his nickname would be.

I groaned when everyone nodded vigorously wanting to know also. I muttered under my breathe a few unnecessary words before I answer them.

"The Silent One is Hades. The Messenger is Hermes. The Dove is Aphrodite. Wine Dude is Dionysus. Mr. Sunshine is Apollo. The Wise One is Athena. The Forge is Hephaestus. White-Armed is Hera. Poseidon is Earth-Shaker. Zeus is Cloud Collector. Destroyer of Men is Ares. Artemis is The Huntress. Percy is Aquaman. Thalia is Pinecone. Annabeth is Wise Girl. Jason is Lightning Boy or Sparky. Frank is Fai. Piper is Pipes. Hazel is Haze. Nico is Ghost Boy. Leo is Repair Boy. G-man is Grover. Big Guy is Tyson. Rachel is Dare. Hecate is Catty. Aand Spencer is Spencie. That's it." I said naming off all their nicknames.

A bunch of them sighed at their nicknames, the others nodded approvingly at theirs.

"What do people call you?" Leo asked.

"Shelby, Shelbs, Shelbster, Shelbell, Shelbygirl, Shelbyloowoo, Okami*****, Red Demoness Shelby*****, Orphan Child, Angel, Dog, and Toto." I said listing off all the nicknames I ever had.

"Orphan Child? But you aren't an orphan though." Athena said.

I rolled my eyes. "My cousin likes to tease me. She used to call me her little Orphan Child, but now she calls me her innocent Angel. The other names like Shelbs, Shelbell, Shelbyloowoo, Shelbygirl, Dog, Toto, and Shelbster are what my family and friends call me in my world. The rest are from the different worlds I go into."

"Why are you called Red Demoness?" Ares asked, grinning at my nickname.

I sighed as I stand up to demonstrate why I am called the Red Demoness Shelby. I closed my eyes and concentrated pulling my energy out making it surround me in a red hue. I also poof out my katanas twirling them around a couple times as I open my eyes.

"This is why I am called the Red Demoness Shelby." I said as I twirled my katanas around.

"Explain more about the red around you." Zeus said, staring intently at the red like cloak around me.

"Its energy inside of you, everyone has it but it is called something different in many worlds. It is called Chakra, Magic, Ambition, Souls, and Ki, which is also called energy. For you guys, it's your abilities." I explained as best as I could.

"Ahh." Everyone said.

I sighed as I released my hold on my energy and made my katanas go back into my bag.

"What does Okami mean?" Leo asked, not getting what it means.

"Wolf in Japanese." Athena, Annabeth and I said at the same time.

"Wolf? Why are you called that?" Artemis asked, her interest peeked.

I was about to answer when I was bulldozed to the ground by a white blur that came out of my bag, which was still by Nico for some reason.

"Gah!" I grunted out as I was knocked to the ground.

I looked to see what bulldozed me to the ground. It turns out to be my Pure White Wolf, named Snowfall but Snow for short.

"Hello Snow. I've missed you too, now please get off me." I groaned, just lying on the ground waiting for Snow to get off of me.

**_"What have you done this time?!"_** Snow growled at me.

"I didn't do anything! Hecate woke me up at 4:30 in the morning to read the Percy Jackson books to the Gods, Percy and the rest." I said trying to calm her down not fancying the idea of getting bit from her right now.

**_"Then why did I sense you energy?"_** Snow asked, narrowing her ice blue eyes at me.

"Because Zeus and Ares asked me why I am called Red Demoness Shelby and to explain my energy to everyone, so of course I gave them a demonstration." I said.

**_"Oh… Well that's fine then."_** Snow said cheerfully, jumping off of me using my chest like a spring board.

I grumbled as I stand up, rubbing my stomach and chest from where she barreled right into me soothing the achiness. I almost burst out in laughter when I saw the Gods and the quintet's facial expressions to how I was talking to Snow. The others were trying to hold in their laughter from the others facial expressions.

**_"I'm guessing the ones that are letting bugs into their mouths don't know that much about you, do they?" _**Snow said, sitting by my feet staring at the Gods and the quintet.

"Pretty much." I chirped, grinning at them.

"You can understand her?" Artemis asked, with her surprised widen eyes.

"Before the accident with Fate I have been able to understand animals, speak to them both in animal tongue and human tongue." I said to the Huntress.

**_"Lady Artemis."_** Snow said bowing her head towards Artemis showing her respect.

Artemis nodded and gave Leo a sign to continue reading from where he left off.

**"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

**I had an idea.**

"Oh, no." Everyone except for the Gods said.

Percy half-heartedly glared at them.

"What's wrong with having a plan?" Athena asked. Everyone looked at Annabeth.

"There is a reason that he's not a son of Athena. His plans never seem to work unless they are completely stupid. You'll see a lot of them throughout the books." She explained.

"Shelby also has stupid ideas that don't work out sometimes. Other times it's just her protective instincts that don't make them work." Hecate said shrugging off the glare I give her.

**_"Yup."_** Snow agreed nodding her head.

"You both suck." I said glaring at the two of them.

—**a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all.**

**I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

**But it didn't happen like that.**

**The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

**Time slowed down.**

**My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

"WOOHOO!" I yelled, throwing my hands up in the air.

Snow bite my leg to quiet me down.

"Ow! Why did you bite me?!" I gritted out, as I dumped peroxide on the bite then wrapped it in a bandage.

**_"I always do. I thought you got used to it by now."_** Snow said giving me a wolfish grin.

**How did I do that?**

**I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

**The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

**The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

**Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

**"Food!" Grover moaned.**

**The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.**

"Not going to happen!" Ares sang, badly.

**The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—snap!**

Ares went wide eyed with his mouth hanging open in shock that Percy was able to pull the horn off.

"You were saying." I said smirking at Ares.

**The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

**The monster charged.**

**Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barrelled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

**The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs Dodd's had burst apart.**

**The monster was gone.**

**The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open.**** I**** was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish.**

**I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farm house. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

"Thanks Perce." Grover said smiling.

"No problem G-man." Percy said.

**The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

Annabeth blushed bright red as the demigods, Rachel, Tyson, Grover, and I laughed.

Percy whispered something into her ear making Annabeth's blush deepen, and Aphrodite to squeal from the scene. Athena glared at the two of them not liking their closeness.

"Tell them or so help me I will ruin the plots from all the books for all of them." I said, giving Percy and Annabeth a look.

They both sighed. "Fine. We are together making us boyfriend and girlfriend." They said together.

"YES!" Aphrodite squealed loudly, while Athena fumed.

"Lady Athena, I know that you are upset but they have been together since the last book of this series. It doesn't matter to them that you have a rivalry with Poseidon. Please wait until all the books are finished before you tell them how you feel about their relationship." I said, trying to not get on her bad side but also sticking up for Percy and Annabeth.

She nodded and Leo continued to read.

**They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

"He's the one huh Annie?" Thalia said teasing Annabeth.

Annabeth glared at her but didn't say anything.

**"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

"That's the end of the chapter." Leo said as he slammed my book shut.

My eye twitched. _'No Shelby. Do not hurt Leo for slamming my book shut. It didn't hurt the book.'_

Snow nudged my leg with her head to get me out of my violent mood. I smiled down at her silently thanking her as I sit down next to Hazel, who so happens to be sitting next to Nico.

"Shelby, what's your wolf's name?" Hazel asked, as Snow came over to lay on my lap.

"Snowfall, but I call her Snow for short." I said, petting Snow's back as she laid on me.

"How old is Snowfall?" Artemis asked, noticing something that seemed off about Snow.

**_"I've known you for three years, right?"_** I asked Snow telepathically.

**_"Yes. I was just a pup when you meet me, so that means I'm almost 3 years old which makes me a young adult, but because of biting you I look like I am still about 12 weeks old making me still a pup."_** Snow said back through our mind link.

"She's almost 3 years old." I said, scratching my head as I thought about how old she is.

"How is that possible? She clearly looks like she is only twelve weeks old." Artemis said, narrowing her eyes at me.

I sighed. "That's the thing that happens when an animal repeatedly bites me, drawing blood then licking the wound clean. When they end up biting me then licking the blood away, it causes certain changes to happen to them. They well… Someone should try to harm me to see what happens." I said, blowing my bangs out of my face.

"Hades." Zeus said, wanting to see Hades get his butt kicked.

Hades rolled his eyes and with a wave of his hand the ground a couple feet from me becomes pitch black. Skeletons with pointy bone swords rise up from the ground and walk towards me.

Snowfall's ears twitch and bolts up from my lap to stand in front of me, growling at the skeletons as I yawn and wait for everyone's reactions.

Snowfall becomes engulfed in blue flames _(kind of like Kirara from Inuyasha)_ and when it clears she is as big as a full grown brown bear. She grew from 2 ft. to 5 ft. in an instant. She crouches and prepares for the attack _(Defensive Threat)_. Her fur bristles _(hackles raise)_ in order to appear larger and more threatening, at the same time her eyes take on an angry wild expression and her lips curl back to snarling and bearing her fangs _(Ambivalence Display)_.

I hold in my laughter when I see everyone has dropped their mouths in surprise and their eyes widen at the sight of my pure white wolf. I stand up from my spot on the floor and walked to Snow's side, scratching her back then her head to calm her down, silently telling her that I am fine and the skeletons aren't a threat.

Snow grows one last time at the skeletons then proceeds to shrink back down. If wolfs were able to skip that's how she would of walked when she came up to me and rubbed her head against my leg before laying down by Percy and Annabeth.

"The skeletons can go away now." I said, smirking with my arms crossed over my chest as I looked at Hades.

Hades shrugs and gets rid of the skeletons.

"Soo… Who wants to read now?" I asked, tired of all the questions as I sat down by Percy and Annabeth, being mindful of Snow as I sat down in the middle of Annabeth and her.

No one seemed to want to read it so I made the book disappear from Leo's hands and threw it at Jason making him read the book. He gave me a glare but I just shrugged and motioned with my hand to just read it.

"Read the book, Sparky." I said.

Jason rolls his eyes at his nickname and begins reading the chapter.

"**I Play Pinochle With a Horse," **Jason read.

**I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.**

Everyone laughed.

**I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding.**

"Ahh popcorn." Spencer sighed, thinking about the buttery goodness.

I rolled my eyes at my brother giving myself a mental face palm wondering why I am related to him.

**The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me, smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.**

"She Liiiiikes you." Spencer said, rolling his tongue.

I slapped his head before anybody could hit him themselves. He glares at me as he rubs his sore head.

**When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"**

"That's what I want to know." All the Gods said.

**I managed to croak, "What?"**

**She looked around, as if afraid someone would over hear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"**

"You realize Percy probably didn't know what you were talking about at all right?" Thalia asked, looking at Annabeth,

Annabeth shrugged. "I didn't know him then and I wanted to see if he knew anything at all what was happening."

**"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."**

**Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.**

**The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.**

**A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me. He had blue eyes- at least a dozen of them- on his cheeks, his forehead, and the backs of his hands.**

**When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries.**

**There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.**

"I hate scorpions." I muttered, glaring at the ground.

**On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.**

**My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.**

**"Careful," a familiar voice said.**

**Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week.**

"Of course I didn't sleep. I was worried about you." Grover said.

"Thanks." Percy said, grinning at him.

**Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said _CAMP HALF-BLOOD_. Just plain old Grover. Not the goat boy.**

"Really Percy? …" Grover groaned giving Percy a small glare.

**So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And...**

**"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."**

**Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.**

**Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.**

**"The Minotaur," I said.**

"Percy… You shouldn't have said that." I groaned.

"I know that now." Percy said.

**"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea-"**

**"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull."**

"Yes, yes it is." I said quietly.

**Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"**

**"My mom. Is she really ..."**

**He looked down.**

Everyone looked upset, even the ones that knew what happened to Percy's mom.

**I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.**

**My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.**

"You already have monsters after you, now your mother is gone. You two happy now?" Demeter said sadly towards Percy, but turned and glared at Zeus and Hades.

They stayed quiet and slouched in their thrones as they avoided her glare.

**"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm- I'm the worst satyr in the world."**

"Grover! You are not a failure! You are the best. You have a girlfriend that loves you. You found Pan. You became Lord of the Wild. And you became part of the council." I said, glaring down at him as I stood angrily in front of him.

I trembled in anger, as I kept clenching and unclenching my fists to keep my energy that is pulsing through my body at bay. The ground under our feet shakes from the energy that is bleeding out of my body.

I clenched my teeth as I concentrated pulling the energy that leaked out back in and calmed myself down. The ground stops shaking as I let out a sigh. I blew my bangs out of my face and plop myself back down by Percy and Annabeth keeping my gaze on the ground ignoring everyone's gazes.

**He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.**

**"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.**

**Thunder rolled across the clear sky.**

**As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, well, that settles it.** **Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.**

**But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even Minotaur's. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.**

"WHY DID YOU TAKE HER!?" Poseidon yelled at Hades.

"I don't know! This hasn't happened yet!" Hades yelled back.

**I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe?**

"Never going to happen!" Everyone shouted.

**No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something.**

**Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid- poor goat, satyr, whatever- looked as if he expected to be hit.**

**I said, "It wasn't your fault."**

**"Yes, it was. I was supposed to _protect _you."**

**"Did my mother ask you to protect me?"**

**"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."**

**"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.**

**"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.**

**I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies.**

I take out my favorite cookies (Hobbler Flockers- no bake cookies) out of my bag without anyone noticing and began to eat them. I was almost done with the bag I brought with me, when Demeter noticed what I was eating.

"What kind of cookies are those?" Demeter asked, staring down at me.

"WHAT!?" All the demigods, Grover, Rachel, Hermes, Apollo, and Spencer yelled as they turned their attention to me.

I ignored them and answered Demeter instead.

"They are no-bake cookies made with oatmeal, peanut butter and cocoa. My family calls them Hobbler Flockers. Here try one." I said as I got up and gave her my last cookie to try.

"Thank you and it was delicious. Do you want to try whole grain cookies?" Demeter asked, smiling at me.

Everyone gagged. I saw Hades shake his head without Demeter noticing.

I shrugged. "How about later."

"YES!" Demeter cheered.

**And not just any cookies- my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.**

"You truly do love your mother." Hera told Percy, as she pointedly glared at Ares and Hephaestus. Ares just shrugged, but Hephaestus shouted, "You threw me off of Olympus!" Hera didn't answer.

**Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.**

**"Was it good?" Grover asked.**

**I nodded.**

**"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.**

**"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."**

**His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."**

**"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's homemade."**

**He sighed. "And how do you feel?"**

**"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."**

"DO IT." Ares shouted.

**"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff"**

**"What do you mean?"**

**He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."**

**The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.**

**My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.**

**As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.**

**We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. **

**The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture "an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena" except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. **

**In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.**

**Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.**

**The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels- what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park.**

**He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my step-father.**

"Damn right." Dionysus said.

**"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite."**

Thalia, Nico, Annabeth, Grover, and Rachel started laughing while Percy pouted. Everyone else that knew Percy just snickered.

"Percy is _not_ known for being polite to anyone. Even the gods." I said, snickering a bit.

"Okay." was all they could say. All the gods looked confused, yet with amused expressions.

**"The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron…"**

**He pointed to the guy whose back was to me.**

**First, I realized that he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.**

"**Mr. Brunner!" I cried.**

**The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers _B_.**

**"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."**

**He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."**

**"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, _if _there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.**

"Shelby, I have a question…" Spencer said, interrupting Jason.

"What?" I asked, looking up to stare at my brother.

"From what I remembered from what I heard you talking to one of your friends after you finished the first series, wasn't Percy the Child of the Prophecy?" Spencer asks confused, not getting the hidden joke there.

"WHAT?!" Everyone except for well everyone who already knows about Percy being the child of the prophecy and knowing what he did to save Olympus (Annabeth, Percy, Thalia, Nico, Tyson, Rachel, Grover, the quintet, and I) yelled.

I slapped my face groaning. "Spencer… Did Hecate tell you not to say anything about the books when she brought you here?"

"I don't remember." Spencer said, giving me an innocent smile.

I looked up at the ceiling and threw both my hands up in a dramatic gesture. "Why universe… Why? ... Why do you hate me?..." I said, groaning as I put my head in my hands.

"PERCY WAS THE CHILD OF THE PROPHECY?!" Zeus and Poseidon shouted down at me.

"Oh for the love of… YES! He was the child of the prophecy!" I started to mutter to myself but ended up yelling at them.

"But… How?" Zeus said after a couple seconds went by.

I grumbled to myself quietly, not letting anyone hear what I said. I sighed and gave Percy a look asking if he wanted me to explain or he should.

Percy sent a look that clearly said 'your brother mentioned it, you tell them.' I rolled my eyes and shook my head sighing.

"Well for one fully explained throughout the books and the prophecy itself is a big clue." I said, crossing my arms over my chest being annoyed at my big mouth brother and all.

"What's the Prophecy sa-"Hermes got cut off by Rachel standing up with glowing green eyes and I as we say the prophecy together.

_"A half-blood of the eldest gods_

_Shall reach sixteen against all odds_

_And see the world in endless sleep_

_The hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap_

_A single choice shall end his days_

_Olympus to preserve or raze" _

Rachel started to collapse when Thalia and I grab her before she fell. All the Gods and the quintet were quiet thinking about the prophecy trying to decipher the whole thing.

I motioned Jason to continue reading after I slapped Spencer in the head a couple times.

**"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.**

**She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."**

**Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."**

**She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking. With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.**

"You bet, I would take you down." Annabeth said.

**She glanced at the Minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, _You killed a minotaur! _or _Wow, you're so awesome! _or something like that.**

"Aha but no. If I said that it would be more in a sarcastic tone, then an enthusiasm one." I said, smirking at Percy as I dodged a smack to my head.

**Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."**

"Meh… I do too sometimes." I said shrugging while everyone laughed as Percy blushed.

**Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.**

**"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"**

**"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex-Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."**

**"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"**

**Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."**

"That's good advice, but to the wrong person to give it too since he never did learn it." Thalia said sighing.

"Yup." All the demigods, Grover, Rachel, and I said while Percy glared at us.

"**I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call on a potential camper. I'd hate to think that I've wasted my time.**

"**House call?"**

"**My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upsate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to…ah, take a leave of absence."**

**I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.**

"**You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.**

"No Percy… He came to eat the food they had there… Yes he came to just to teach you." I said sarcastically.

Percy slaps the back of my head not liking my comment. I rubbed my head and glared at him.

**Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first.**

**We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."**

**"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"**

**"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.**

"**You _do_ know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.**

"**I'm afraid not," I said.**

"**I'm afraid not, _sir_," he said.**

"**Sir," I repeated. I was liking this camp director less and less.**

"Hey!" Dionysus shouted.

"Sorry." Percy apologized to the Wine God.

"**Well," he told me, 'it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all _civilized_ young men to know the rules."**

**"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron said.**

**"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun-Chiron-why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"**

**Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."**

**The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.**

**Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, _I _was his star student. He expected _me _to have the right answer.**

**"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'**

**"She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."**

**"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"**

"**What?" I asked.**

**He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.**

"**I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."**

"That's why it took me longer to explain everything to you…" Annabeth said, nodding her head when she realized Percy missed seeing the video.

"Did everyone get to see the orientation film, except for me?" Percy asked.

"I didn't see the film." I said, frowning wanting to see the orientation film nut it didn't really matter if I saw it or not.

"Well besides Shelby and Spencer." Percy said.

"Yup." Everyone said.

Percy pouted while everyone laughed. I patted him on the back letting him know I understood how he felt.

**"Orientation film?" I asked.**

**"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know-" he pointed to the horn in the shoe box- "that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods- the forces you call the Greek gods- are very much alive."**

**I stared at the others around the table.**

**I waited for somebody to yell, _Not! _But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.**

**"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"**

**"Eh? Oh, all right."**

**Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.**

**"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as god."**

**"Well, now," Chiron said. "God- capital _G_, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."**

"Yes, yes. I know Shelby. I'm sorry for saying something about your religion. So shh." Percy said, covering my mouth before I could nag him about my religious views.

I pouted and glared at his hand silently wishing for it to erupt into flames that is covering my mouth.

**"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"**

**"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."**

**"Smaller?"**

**"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."**

**"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."**

**And there it was again-distant thunder on a cloudless day.**

"**Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."**

**"But they're stories," I said. "They're- myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."**

"Do we look like a myth to you?!" Zeus yelled.

"It doesn't really matter if you look like myths or not. Everyone has their own beliefs whether or not they believe that you are real or not. Seeing isn't believing. Believing is seeing*****." I stated, ignoring the confused looks I got.

**"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"**

"And that will be the last time you say his name right." I muttered sadly.

**- I flinched when he said my real name, which I had never told anybody-"**

"Yeah, that gets annoying when monsters and Gods just automatically know my name." Percy muttered. All the demigods and I nodded our heads in agreement.

**-"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals-they have absolutely no sense of perspective. **

**They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."**

**I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if… he wasn't.**

**It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.**

**"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that _immortal _means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"**

**I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.**

**"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.**

**"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call _you _a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"**

**My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."**

**"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."**

Poseidon glares at the Wine God. Dionysus slouches in his thrones trying to evade his glare.

We all start snickering to the confusion of all the Gods.

"When does someone _not_ want to incinerate you!?" We all gasped out laughing.

Percy smiles and shakes his head at us as he motioned for Jason to continue reading after he stopped laughing.

**Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."**

**"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"**

**He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.**

**My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.**

**"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."**

**Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.**

**"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"**

**More thunder.**

**Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.**

**Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."**

**"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.**

**"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time- well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away- the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."**

**Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.**

"No I don't!" Dionysus shouted.

"Yes you do." All the Gods and I said.

Dionysus grumbled and shot me a glare which I happily stuck my tongue out in response.

**"And ..." I stammered, "your father is ..."**

"And I repeat… You're slow…" I said, successfully dodging a smack to my head from Percy.

**_"Di immortales, _****Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."**

**I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.**

**"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."**

**Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"**

**"Y-yes, Mr. D."**

**"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"**

Aphrodite glared at him.

**"You're a god."**

**"Yes, child."**

**"A god. You."**

**He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.**

**"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.**

**"No. No, sir."**

**The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."**

"I won?" Dionysus asked, happy he finally managed to beat Chiron.

**"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."**

"Nope." I said popping the 'p'.

**I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.**

**"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, _again, _about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."**

**Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."**

**Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."**

**He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.**

**"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.**

**Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."**

**"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"**

**"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."**

**"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in _America_?"**

**"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."**

**"The what?"**

**"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know- or as I hope you know, since you passed my course- the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps- Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on- but the same forces, the same gods."**

**"And then they died."**

**"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture.**

**People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not- and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either**

**- America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."**

**It was all too much, especially the fact that _I _seemed to be included in Chiron's _we, _as if I were part of some club.**

**"Who are you, Chiron? Who ... who am I?"**

"You are Perseus Jackson, also known as Kelp Head, Prissy, Seaweed Brain, Water Boy, and Aquaman. You were the Child of the Prophecy, and now one of the Seven." I said, earning my hair messed up by Percy when he rubbed my head with his hand.

**Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.**

**"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to 'meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be smores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."**

**And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. **

**And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.**

"Pony!" Tyson cried.

Everyone snickered.

**I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.**

**"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."**

"That's the end of the chapter." Jason said, as he threw my book back at me.

"Why don't we take a few minute break before we read the next couple chapters." Zeus said.

Everyone cheered, as we all stood up from the ground stretching our sore muscles, that I'm pretty sure must of our butts feel asleep.

Percy whispers something in Annabeth's ear then walks over to me and drags me to a random corner in the throne room.

"Why are we going to a corner?" I asked him, as he drags me.

"We are having another one of our talks." Percy said, to which I groaned.

_'Not another one…'_ I thought groaning, his talks are always about something he is concerned about or he is always voted by everyone else since he is more like a brother figure then everyone else and they know I will sometimes listen to what he says more than anybody else.

We reach a corner no sooner I started complaining and groaning to myself. He stands in front of me with his arms crossed over his chest as he waits till I am done.

"So… What's up with you and Nico?" Percy asks after I stopped complaining.

"Nothing." I said a bit too quickly then I liked.

"Really? Then how come you are avoiding him by not talking to him or sitting by him which you usually do when you are with us?" Percy said, giving me a look silently telling me that he isn't buying it.

_'Damn it… He noticed…'_ I thought looking down avoiding his gaze.

"That's what I would like to know also." Nico said popping out of nowhere scaring the crap out of me making me jump a bit in surprise as he stands by us.

"Well I'll leave you two alone so that you guys can talk." Percy said, walking back to Annabeth ignoring my silent plea to not leave me alone with him.

I crossed my arms over my chest and looked in a different direction than looking at Nico.

"You been avoiding me ever since your brother mentioned the crush you have on me." Nico said, glaring at me.

I flinched, but I didn't bother saying anything to him so I stayed quiet as I kept my gaze on the ground.

"Shelby… The book you read that says I am gay in, is wrong." Nico said sighing.

I whipped my head up to stare at him. My eyes widen in surprise.

"But… wait… what?" I managed to say.

"I did have a crush on… you know who… but I do have a crush on someone else… That someone else is you…" Nico said slowly, as if he was talking to a child.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Yea... Well that's the end of chapter three... :D Please Review or pm me if you have any more ideas or have questions in general for me!**

***The weird dream is actually from my friend… Mine are well… They are really about me going into movies, books, TV shows. They are pretty much my stories I've been writing about.**

***When I said 'He smells just like a zombie, but without the burning flesh and rotten eggs smell' if you don't get it read Dreamworld.**

***Red Demoness Shelby is from my One Piece story Backlash Wave of a Portal. Okami is both from Backlash Wave of a Portal and from my Digimon story The Crest of Innocence.**

***Seeing isn't Believing. Believing is Seeing- a quote from the movie The Santa Claus.**


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